Despite ending Marvel Studios’ panel at last year’s San Diego Comic-Con with a bang by announcing that two-time Academy Award winner Mahershala Ali had been cast as the lead in the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s reboot of Blade, there’s been virtually no movement on the project since. No director or writers have been officially confirmed, and there’s not even a hint of a release date yet, although the signs point to the Daywalker returning at some point during Phase Five.
Obviously, there’ll be a lot going on behind the scenes, with Kevin Feige admitting that Ali himself was the driving force behind making it happen, but everything we’ve heard about Blade so far is only speculation. The most likely scenario is that it starts shooting at some stage next year, with Marvel having their hands full throughout 2020 with no less than ten movies and Disney Plus shows going in front of the cameras in the coming months.
1998’s Blade is arguably one of the most important comic book movies ever made, of course, re-establishing the genre as a viable and lucrative avenue for Hollywood, and set the stage for the boom that really kicked off with Bryan Singer’s X-Men at the turn of the millennium. For many people, Wesley Snipes is the definitive version of the character, so it came as no surprise that fans were making it known that they wanted him to show up in the reboot in some form.
The actor has given his blessing to the latest version of Blade already, although his comments made it sound as though praise was being directed towards his replacement rather than Marvel themselves. And while there’d been talk of a brief cameo for some time now, we’re hearing that the 57 year-old may have a bigger part to play.
According to our sources – the same ones that revealed John Cena’s top-secret role in Fast & Furious 9 months ago and said that a She-Hulk Show is coming to Disney Plus, both of which have now been confirmed – Marvel are looking into the idea of casting Snipes as Dracula in the Blade reboot. And while it isn’t a certainty that it’ll happen, our intel indicates that the studio are definitely talking about it, despite concerns about his often-erratic on-set behavior.
That being said, it might be a little too distracting and outside of the MCU’s M.O. to have the guy that many audiences recognize as Blade playing the villain in a reboot, which would likely only lead to comparisons between Snipes and Ali, but the ball is now in Kevin Feige’s court if he wants to bring him back or not. And from what we’ve heard, the producer definitely wants him involved in some form. Even if not as Dracula.
