Mahershala Ali’s MCU Blade movie is turning into a True Detective reunion
True Detective's Nic Pizzolatto is now writing the long-gestating MCU Blade movie
Aux News Blade
We don’t normally associate Marvel Comics character Blade with a lot of serious detective work. If someone dies and Blade’s on the case, then the culprit is almost always—to quote an acclaimed poet—“Vampires! Vampires! Vampires! Vampires!”
Nevertheless: The long-in-the-works Marvel Cinematic Universe debut of the character is turning into a real True Detective reunion, with news breaking today that that show’s creator, Nic Pizzolatto, has now been tapped to write the film. That, in turn, transforms the upcoming film into a sort of reunion project for Pizzolatto and Ali, who previously collaborated on the third season of the HBO crime series.
Blade has been a big question mark on the Marvel calendar for a damn long while at this point; the movie was originally announced back in 2019, and got the standard post-credits tease (with Ali voicing a single line of dialogue) at the end of 2021's Eternals. But the film has run into a few problems in pre-production, most notably losing original director Bassim Tariq, who was replaced with Lovecraft Country’s Yann Demange last year. At the same time, writer Michael Starrbury was brought on to write a script; Pizzolatto is reportedly working from that template for his own draft of the film, which he’s been working on for the last several weeks.
Blade—which recently cast Mia Goth as, we’re guessing, some extremely creepy vampire lady—is currently set for a September 2024 premiere, so Pizzolatto at least has some time to work on his version of the story. We have no idea what direction the new film is set to take, but this latest hire certainly suggests we’re not in for a kinder, gentler, less-gritty Blade movie whenever Ali’s version eventually makes its way to theaters.
[via THR]
12 Comments
Man, Steven Dorff really jumped the gun on that True Detective S3 reunion by being in the wrong Blade film nearly 25 years too early.Can’t wait to hear Blade say things like, “your compensatory projection of menace is a guarantor of its lack!”
Just as long as some motherfuckers try to ice skate uphill, or whatever the modern equivalent is, I’m good.
“This cheugy mf Karen needs to touch grass fr.”It’ll suck.
On the other hand, Stephen Dorff has been in the good Blade film so he’s ahead on the deal.
Blade is great. Blade 2 is better.
That last line would read SO GOOD in a Coen Brother’s movie.
Sounds good to me! As long as he includes a cameo from Vampire Hunter and Cowboy Laureate of the West Dalton Wilcox.
Vampires! Vampires! Vampires!
Interestingly, Nic previously said this:
Batman is the only character in the world I didn’t create that I want a
shot at. And he’s the only piece of geek culture I have any affinity for
https://www.indiewire.com/2020/04/nic-pizzolatto-batman-true-detective-1202225800/Maybe he doesn’t consider Blade to be part of “geek culture”. I also thought he was busy directing his first feature (starring Vince Vaughn from season 2 and featuring Michell Monaghan from season 1), and creating a western TV series for Amazon.
I am a serious Blade fan but I’m going to lose interest if they don’t get this thing out. It’s either going to be very good or a dud and, with all of this confusion, I’m thinking the latter.
Well that’s awful news.
There was a great Blade one shot last year called “Vampire Nation”. Dracula has established a nation of vampires in the Chernobyl exclusion zone and Blade is the UN appointed sheriff. Never made sense to me to have Blade without Dracula anyway.