Kevin Feige says Blade will start filming in 10 weeks, and there’s absolutely no reason to doubt him
There have already been years of setbacks, what's another... several months?
Aux News Blade
It’s been 20 years since Blade II came out, and Marvel’s film division—in the various forms it has taken in these last few decades—has been trying and failing to make another good one that whole time. Things seemed to have turned a corner in 2019 when Oscar winner Mahershala Ali signed on to star as the Day Walker, but that project had its own string of setbacks, including losing its director and an apparent filming delay last summer. Things were rocky enough that original Blade villain Stephen Dorff recently dragged Marvel for its inability to make another good Blade movie, which was fair. (He made one of the good Blade movies! He’s allowed to do it.)
But today, as part of an Entertainment Weekly interview in which he offered little updates on a number of Marvel Studios projects, Kevin Feige teased that Blade will start filming “in, like, the next 10 weeks or so.” Hooray! Actually… 10 weeks is a long time, and even Feige doesn’t seem totally convinced in that quote, so maybe he’s being cautious about all of this. That’s not really in his nature (the MCU is nothing if not a series of big swings), but it has been years of getting burned on this thing. He must be at least a little worried that something else will happen.
In that same EW piece, Feige revealed that Harrison Ford’s Thaddeus Ross will be the president when he shows up in Captain America: New World Order, and there will be some drama between him and the new Captain America. He also mentioned that there’s a fourth Spider-Man movie in the works that has a “story” and “big ideas,” with writers just now “putting pen to paper,” but that sounds very far off.
19 Comments
Was the first Blade movie good, though? I’d say it’s ‘ok’ but the second one was the real good one.
The only part of the first one that rises above ‘ok’ is the opening sequence, which is fucking great. Movie peaks way too damn early.
Ah, Super Troopers syndrome.
The first one has one of the greatest examples of “hero delivers cool-sounding quip right before icing the bad guy” in all of film.
The opening action scene of the original Blade is probably better than anything the MCU has ever done and is better than anything they will do.
It’s damn good but the opening scene of Ragnarok is better.
The first Blade is also excellent. They both are.Blade 2 is great as a kind of soft launch for Guillermo del Toro’s commercial style, and it’s super interesting as a horror/action film that’s secretly actually about gay panic and the HIV crisis.But the first Blade is a straight-up neo-exploitation movie, like Django Unchained. It rules. The entire movie centers a no-nonsense Black lead taking on a cabal of inbred “purebloods,” beating up and then laughing at corrupt police officers, and otherwise telling an extremely 70’s story of Black exceptionalism that ends with Blade killing a self-appointed vampire god.The MCU is too politically safe to do either of these things. But I feel strongly that BOTH of the first Blade movies kick ass.
Oh the themes of the first movie are great, the execution seemed awesome at the time but honestly the second movie knocked the first one down to just ‘ok’ the moment it came out.
I love the first two Blade films, but it seems like there’s a lot of historical revisionism with the first film. Aside from the idea that it was a really great film (it wasn’t) there’s the idea that it made comic book films mainstream. The success of the first film was definitely a windfall to Marvel financially, but I’ve lost track of the number of people I’ve heard over the years say “Wait, Blade was a comic book movie?” Even big fans of the film. It did very little to change how superhero movies were viewed by the general public, because most of the general public had no idea it WAS a superhero movie.
My guess would be that a lot of the delay is just not knowing which of these current projects is going to succeed and to what degree they want to tie him in with the other projects (which are all more unified in the TV shows than in the movies). I kind of hope they just left it standalone…not sure Blade needs to be an Avenger.Does anybody who actually reads Blade comic books have deep cares about who he crosses over with?
The rumor has been that the first scripts were disasters and that’s why the writer / director were replaced. As for who Blade crosses over with, they’re very clearly setting up a Midnight Suns team-up. They already have Dr. Strange, Wong, Moon Knight, Werewolf by Night, Man-Thing, and Elsa Bloodstone.
And they’ve already connected Blade to Black Knight for some reason or another.
I’m sure it’s for the obvious reason.(Swords. The obvious reason is swords.)
It’s a sword thing.
I’ve only read the 70s stuff, but Blade without Dracula has never sat right with me. The current Vampire Nation run (Dracula rules over a country of vampires in the Chernobyl exclusion zone and Blade is the UN appointed sheriff) sounds like it might have some promise.
This is my guess too.When originally announced the MCU was going to head in a more disparate direction with lots of small crossovers.Covid happens and stockholders want a big Avengers event sooner so they can try and recapture big event status (and billion dollar box offices.)And, honestly, I think Blade is going to disappoint lots of fans, he was never planned to be a big part of the MCU. They’re plugging him in and he’s probably being used to introduce something else more than be his own thing.
Blade has actually been a member of the main roster of the Avengers for the passed two or three years in Jason Aaron’s run of the comics. I dropped off a few arcs in but last I checked he’s still on the lineup.
It’s basically so the Avengers can fight vampires every once in awhile.
I would actually argue that this is the version that could work within the MCU.
Interesting part of the interview is that “Thunderbolt” Ross is President in New World Order. From washed-up failure to SoS to POTUS. This man is my hero.
Sounds like an awful lot of other old mediocre white male politicians, if I’m allowed to be honest.