Marvel Studios' upcomingBladereboot, which will reportedly be titledBlade, The Vampire Slayer, will begin production later this year. The studio has yet to reveal a director or supporting cast for the project, with Academy award winning actor Mahershala Ali currently the only star attached, so expect moreBladeannouncements imminently.
Watchmenwriter Stacy Osei-Kuffour was recentlytapped to be on scripting dutyfor Marvel’sBladereboot, with the Emmy nominated writer penning a script that will likely reset the franchise and tell all-new adventures of the part-vampire, part-mortal man who becomes a vampire hunter to protect humanity. While plot details remain unknown at present, the movie will no doubt once again involve the internal battle that rages inside Blade, a man who possesses all the vampire’s strengths and none of their weaknesses but does still require blood to survive.
Though manyBladefans had been holding out hope that the Marvel reboot would be an R-rated adventure, much like theWesley Snipes-led trilogybefore it, Marvel Studios President Kevin Feige dashed these dreams during Disney’s recent TCA event. The Marvel Studios boss revealed thatDeadpool 3is currently the only adult oriented project that Marvel are working on, meaning thatBlade, The Vampire Slayerwill be a lot less bloody than audiences are expecting.
“Other than Deadpool, which has already established itself as a certain genre and a certain rating, that we already said we would not mess with when we started working on Deadpool - which we have - other than that, we haven’t encountered a story or a storyline or a character’s journey that aPG-13, or the tone, or the ratings we’ve been using up to this point has prevented us,” Feige said, much to many aBladefan’s chagrin.
Very little is currently known about Blade, The Vampire Slayer, withMoonlightstar Mahershala Ali the only actor attached to the project so far. While Ali is no stranger to the comic book movie genre, the actor has explained in the past exactly why he was drawn to the titular of theBladereboot in particular saying, “Since they were having conversations about bringing it back into being, I just wanted to be considered for it because I had definitely a connection, at least in my mind, to Wesley Snipes going back to high school.”
“I just brought it up as someone who really wanted to take on that [Blade] role and tackle that…I love that it’s darker,” he continued. “That’s all in terms of tone. He’s a little bit darker than some of the other ones and so that element was attractive to me.”
While the movie has not yet been given a release date, the revival of the comic book favorite was recently placed on the Marvel calendar between upcoming sequelsBlack Panther IIandCaptain Marvel 2as part of Phase 4.Blade, The Vampire Slayerprobably won’t be ready to hit screens until sometime in 2022 and considering that Marvel has an untitled project set to release on June 29, 2025, and with this newly revealed production information, it is becoming increasingly likely that this will be when audiences finally get to see the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s take on the beloved character. This comes to us fromthe Phase Zero podcast.
