It’s interesting to learn that two-time Oscar-winning actor Mahershala Ali (Moonlight, Green Book, Luke Cage) approached Marvel Studios about playing Erick Brooks aka Blade, when they weren’t actively casting or developing a reboot at that point in time. But, the studio seemed game to land Mahershala and announced him for the reboot on the stage at San Diego Comic-Con back in 2019, when large-scale events weren’t panic inducing.
Flash forward to 2021 and we have screenwriter Stacy Osei-Kuffour working on a script with a director expected to be named in the near future.
The Hollywood Reporter has revealed that Marvel Studios originally planned on shooting Blade in September but have pushed those plans back to July 2022. They’re also said to be seeking a director for Blade that sees them going head-to-head with DC Films/Warner Bros. who are looking for director to make their black Superman film produced by J.J. Abrams.
Marvel isn’t rushing with Blade, whose start date was pushed from this September to July 2022, so that the studio can spend time working on the Stacy Osei-Kuffour-penned script.
This likely means that Blade won’t be coming out until 2023. There have been signs that they were hoping to shoot Blade in Atlanta, but that has yet to be confirmed. Given the film’s July start, we’re leaning towards the film taking a summer or fall spot.
While Marvel Studios has confirmed that their plan is keep Deadpool 3 an R-rated film, they’ve been less upfront if they’ll keep Blade for mature audiences or not.
Blade was originally one of the more obscure characters of The Tomb of Dracula comics that suddenly got popular when New Line Cinema and director Stephen Norrington brought the character to the big screen back in 1998, two years before X-Men and helped convince studios that Marvel films could be profitable. The character landed a trilogy of movies starring Wesley Snipes, a short-lived live-action television series, and a Japanese anime series.
Released a year before The Matrix, the original Blade had a lot of the similar looks and aesthetics including use of wire-work martial arts known to be extremely common in Hong Kong action films.
BLADE – A half-mortal, half-immortal is out to avenge his mother’s death and rid the world of vampires. The modern-day technologically advanced vampires he is going after are in search of his special blood type needed to summon an evil god who plays a key role in their plan to execute the human race.
SOURCE: THE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER
THE RONIN 