Today on TV you can watch one of the toughest Marvel movies ever. A remake has been in the works for many years. But to this day, filming hasn’t started.
Long before the Marvel Cinematic Universe, various studios tried their luck with comic book adaptations, unearthing extremely different results. While X-Men – The Motion Picture and Spider-Man paved the way for the current superhero films, Blade, released in 1998, turned out to be an untamed beast.
This Marvel blockbuster is anything but cinema for the whole family. On the contrary: In Germany, the mixture of horror and action was released with a rating of 18, which is probably due to the many blood splatters that regularly fly through the picture. Marvel wouldn’t dare make a film like this today … or would they?
25 years after Wesley Snipes’ Marvel debut: Marvel plans new Blade movie, but it all goes wrong
In fact, a Blade reboot has been in the works for some time. After Wesley Snipes portrayed the vampire hunter in the first three films, Mahershala Ali is bringing the character to the MCU. Ali brings Marvel experience with him: He played the villain Cottonmouth in the Netflix series Luke Cage. His Blade, however, faces huge problems.
You can watch the trailer for the first Blade movie here:
Already in 2019, Ali’s Blade casting was revealed. However, till date, the shooting has not started. This is partly because the production has been completely retooled several times. The first version of Blade was to be directed by Bassam Tariq, working with a script by Stacy Osei-Kuffour.
In 2021, Tariq dropped out due to creative differences, so Yann Demange was hired as a replacement director. Michael Starrbury was brought in as a new screenwriter before Nic Pizzolatto was hired earlier this year to rework the script. And then came the double strike in Hollywood.
Originally, Blade was due to hit cinemas in November 2023. Now it’s questionable whether the first clapperboard will even have fallen by then. Marvel is currently planning a February 2025 release, but even that date is looking increasingly unlikely. At least we were able to hear Ali’s Blade as a short voice cameo at the end of Eternals.
