The Big Picture
- Mahershala Ali’s Blade project has been plagued by delays and problems, with constant changes in directors and creative teams, leaving the actor frustrated.
- Ali’s commitments to Blade have likely prevented him from taking on other acting opportunities, restricting his artistic growth and potential.
- Marvel Studios has not shown much confidence or support for Blade, with little effort made to set up the character’s presence in the MCU, leaving Ali under-served and unutilized.
At the end of the 2019 edition of the Marvel Studios Hall H panel at the San Diego Comic-Con, Kevin Feige waltzed out to reveal that there was one more thing the studio had to announce before the panel finally closed. After referencing a slew of then-in-development titles that were, circa July 2019, «rumors,» Feige wanted to give people something more concrete to get excited about. With that, Feige welcomed Mahershala Ali to the stage, who brought out his own baseball cap with the word Blade on it. It was an exciting official confirmation: Ali was coming to the Marvel Cinematic Universe as Blade and getting his own solo movie to boot!
Fresh off winning his second Academy Award at the start of 2019, Ali had reportedly called up Marvel Studios and personally asked about the possibility of him playing Blade in the franchise. Naturally, the studio was more than happy to give an actor of Ali’s caliber what he asked for and Blade was put into development. Initially set for a November 2023 release, Ali’s Blade project has been plagued by endless delays and problems. Years after it was originally announced, Blade still looks like something in the far-off future. Mahershala Ali deserves better than this, having to spend so much time waiting for the gears of the Hollywood franchise machine to grind out one movie for him to star in.
The History of the MCU’s ‘Blade’ Reboot
For a while there, it didn’t look like Blade was necessarily cursed. By the end of 2021, Bassam Tariq was hired to direct the feature while a November 2023 release date was announced. While that would’ve been four years after the original announcement of Ali taking on the role of this vampire slaughterer, that postponement felt more understandable given the greater context of the COVID-19 pandemic grinding the entertainment world to a halt in 2020. As its original principal photography date approached, high-profile actors like Delroy Lindo and Aaron Pierre were hired to play key roles in the feature. Things were looking bright for a superhero who hunts down monsters that come out at night.
Then Tariq left the production and Blade was put into a tailspin. A new director was quickly announced in the form of Yann Demange, as was a February 2025 release date and a fresh screenwriter to overhaul the proceedings. Ali is not an actor unfamiliar with the world of either major studio fare or big franchise features, as seen from his work in Predators and the last two Hunger Games titles. Still, there’s no doubt this specific experience was an incredibly frustrating one for the actor to sit through, especially given how he’d risen to acclaim appearing in dramatic projects like Moonlight or the TV show True Detective that carried such distinctive creative visions. Now here he was stuck headlining a movie that studio executives were constantly being indecisive about, to the point that new creative teams were being brought in regularly to figure out what a new Blade movie should even look like.
Already, this irritating development process was not something that Ali deserved. However, it’s extra irritating because of the restrictions many studios put on superhero movie actors. In a revealing red carpet interview with Variety in 2018, Kiersey Clemons confirmed she was still attached to play the character Iris West in a solo Flash movie and that this role was dictating the rest of her career. Specifically, Clemons nonchalantly mentioned that she has to run by every potential role she gets offered through Warner Bros., who were the ones who could approve whether Clemons could appear in any project. The studio was so trigger-happy about wanting to get The Flash going as soon as possible that they were now exerting control over what kind of productions Clemons could or couldn’t appear in out of fear of potential scheduling conflicts.
It’s unknown if Ali has a similar element in his contract, but given how he’s even more important to Blade than Clemons was to The Flash (“it’s the titular role!” to quote Lady Bird), it seems reasonable to assume that his commitments to this feature have taken precedent over a lot of potential acting opportunities that came his way in the last few years. With the potential start date for Blade always shifting around, Ali had to keep his schedule clear, which could explain why he’s only appeared in two live-action movies (Swan Song and Leave the World Behind) since Alita: Battle Angel in February 2019. Just think of all the interesting performances Ali could’ve given and the places he could’ve gone as an artist if he didn’t have to constantly keep his schedule clear for Blade.
Blade has been delayed by the COVID-19 pandemic and WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes.
Does Marvel Studios Even Want ‘Blade’?
Ali is also getting strangely under-served by Marvel Studios, even in terms of how much confidence this outfit keeps demonstrating about Blade. Maybe because it’s a project that Ali suggested take precedence rather than something Kevin Feige cooked up in his noodle for years, but Blade has really been given the short thrift by Marvel Studios. Save for an awkward voice-over cameo in the post-credits scene of Eternals, Ali’s Blade has been absent from the Marvel Cinematic Universe, there’s barely been any attempts to set up this character’s presence. While there have been extensive on-screen teases of characters like Dane Whitman/Black Knight, Hercules, and Skaar, Blade has still never shown up on-screen in a Marvel Studios project. God knows the overstuffed post-Endgame movies from Marvel Studios don’t exactly need more superheroes on-screen, but it’s still odd that this outfit has had Ali at their disposal and not used him.
Despite the endless passion Ali has demonstrated for this character (which is crystallized by how he’s stuck on to this role since 2019), Marvel Studios hasn’t quite reciprocated that level of commitment. The studio just keeps throwing his solo Blade title through the wringer, whether it’s through barely acknowledging that this project is arriving soon in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, or especially through the restrictions put on the feature’s various creative teams. Mahershala Ali clearly wants to play Blade, but those ambitions seem incompatible with the current form of Marvel Studios. The esteemed actor should cut ties with Marvel and find other movies and projects worthy of his endless talents and dedication.
The original Blade is available to stream on Hulu in the U.S.
Watch on Hulu
