We’re seeing more negative stories written about Marvel Studios now than we have in the past decade. The box offices are lower, the TV division just underwent a major creative overhaul, and now there’s news on one of the most confounding projects announced way back in 2019: Blade.
According to Variety, Kevin Feige realizes that things aren’t going right at the moment, and part of the process of scrapping and restarting projects involves Blade. With Oscar winner Mahershala Ali aboard, the project took some odd turns after going through five screenwriters, including True Detective creator Nic Pizzolatto, a pair of directors (Bassam Tariq and Yann Demange), and enduring a weeks-long shutdown due to the writers’ strike.
Oddly enough, Ali nearly walked from the film after one version of the screenplay “morphed into a narrative led by women and filled with life lessons”, with Blade dropped to the fourth lead. That’s insane for a movie that’s about a character fans have been dying to see again, but also when you’ve got an actor like Ali in the lead role. You don’t sideline an actor like him.
But Ali is sticking around now that Oscar-nominated Logan writer Michael Green has come aboard. Hopefully, he can help turn things around. Once planned for a 2023 release, Blade was pushed to September 2024, but it’s more likely to land in theaters in 2025 with a budget under $100M. That’s a far cry from the $200M+ of The Marvels which opens next week.
