Mahershala Ali’s Blade movie to start filming next month, apparently
Barring an Eternals cameo, Ali's take on Marvel's best vampire hunter has been very quiet since being announced in 2019
Aux News Blade
Among the various post-Avengers: Endgame projects Marvel has thrown against the wall over the last three years, few have been announced with more fanfare—and then more resolutely ignored—as Mahershala Ali’s Blade movie. Since he was announced as taking over the part, to rapturous applause, at Comic-Con back in 2019, Ali’s Blade has made exactly one appearance in the Marvel Cinematic Universe: A one-line voice cameo in one of the after-credits scenes of last year’s Eternals.
Now, though, it sounds like Ali might finally be ready to kill some damn vampires (and, possibly, impart some new wisdom about motherfuckers always trying to ice skate uphill), with Total Film reporting that a production listing for the Blade movie has finally popped up on the Film And Television Industry Alliance’s Production List site, suggesting that filming on the movie will commence July 4 in Atlanta.
This is exciting news, in so far as the three previous Blade movies continue to maintain a warm reputation for a) serving as one of the first Marvel projects to ever get any kind of success in movie theaters and b) being weirdo gore spectaculars where ravers dance in human blood and people do wrestling moves on vampires. It doesn’t hurt that Oscar-winner Ali is reportedly super-passionate about the part; we’d genuinely like to see what he can do with the role of the half-vampire vampire hunter, beyond growling “Sure you’re ready for that, Mr. Whitman?” at Jon Snow and his magical sword.
So far, Ali is the only cast member who’s been announced for Blade, which also lacks a release date on the Marvel calendar. Bassam Tariq, whose most recent film credit was 2020's Mogul Mowgli, with Riz Ahmed, has been tapped to direct; Stacy Amma Osei-Kuffour, best known for her work on HBO’s Watchmen series and PEN15, is set to write the script.
18 Comments
He’s going to kill Morbius in the first scene
It’s morbin’ time, motherfucker!
I’ll be mad if it gets that far. Blade kills Morbius after the theatre preamble crap and before the film trailers or GTFO.
It would completely fuck the continuity of the MCU, but it’d be delightful enough that I’d be for it.
Take all my money.
the three previous Blade movies continue to maintain a warm reputation The first one was cool, the second one is probably one of the purest comic-book comic book movies ever made, and the third one is a steaming pile of trash that proves that Goyer’s writing only works when a skilled director gets their hands on it.
It’s almost as if there was a worldwide pandemic which totally upended film production and probably caused whatever they were working on re Blade to get pushed back 18-24 months, so there was literally nothing to report for a couple of years.
Nope – no development or pre-production activities were delayed by COVID. It’s a far more banal reason, and even stupider of Hughes: there was nothing they *wanted* to report, release or leak to the press, and they took as much time as possible to polish the script and get everything lined up. 3 years of development is not abnormal at all, and likely a good omen.
Yeah if anything they probably announced Mahershala a little early for some peoples liking. If memory serves me correctly tho… Ben Affleck was announced as Batman like two solid years before Batman V. Superman. The lead-up to that was ridiculous.
To be fair to this article, the full list of MCU projects announced at SDCC in 2019 are as follows; Black Widow, TFATWS, Eternals, Shang-Chi, WandaVision, Dr. Stange and the Multiverse of Madness, Loki, What If…?, Hawkeye, Thor: Love and Thunder, and Blade. Every single one of those has either been released or is about to be released while Blade hasn’t had any development whatsoever.
while Blade hasn’t had any development whatsoever. Presumably it’s had a script written and preproduction work going on if it’s going to start shooting next month. And all of those other projects had release dates announced at SDCC, while Blade didn’t, obviously implying at the time that it was going to be released after all the rest of them.
It’s similar to what they’re doing with Fantastic Four having that film be the only one they haven’t attached a date too but they keep reminding us that it’s coming.
Stacy Amma Osei-Kuffour is certainly two-for-two on her resumé.
That’s a good sign this might actually be… good?
I hope this movie is full of muthafuckers trying to ice skate uphill
Blade and Blade II are legit good movies IMO.
I don’t need to say I’m looking forward to this but I will. Again, the MCU casting people got it completely right.And now that we’re in the process of breaking in the whole magic/horror thing of Marvel’s, can we get a Brother Voodoo appearance in something?
To anyone unaware, Blade has been a member on the Avengers team lineup for the last few years of Jason Aaron’s run….. just sayinnnn
Not to quibble, but wasn’t Delroy Lindo also announced as a cast member? (Making Ali not the only announced one?)
https://variety.com/2021/film/news/blade-delroy-lindo-marvel-studios-mahershala-ali-1235116298/