Marvel Studios’ attempts to reboot Blade, the iconic vampire-hunter, for the Marvel Cinematic Universe is collapsing in slow motion, but, fortunately for fans, Wesley Snipes is back to save the day.
‘Blade’: Marvel Studios in Crisis
The MCU has lost a significant amount of its cultural dominance in the last five years, which is, perhaps not coincidentally, exactly when it was announced that the studio was rebooting Blade.
At the 2019 San Diego Comic-Con, Marvel Studios chief Kevin Feige revealed that Academy Award-winning actor Mahershala Ali would replace Wesley Snipes as the half-vampire/half-human superhero. It was expected that Blade would be a slam-dunk, given that it already has a built-in fan base and a proven box office track record.
But since 2019, Marvel has struggled to maintain the massive box office grosses and audience loyalties that Disney shareholders have grown accustomed to.
A wave of lackluster movies, like Thor: Love and Thunder (2022), Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania (2023), and The Marvels (2023), has significantly disappointed fans and commercial expectations, while increasingly forgettable Disney+ MCU series have failed to maintain the momentum of early favorites like Wandavision and What If…?
In response to mounting “superhero fatigue,” Disney CEO Bob Iger recently announced that Marvel Studios would reduce its output to a maximum of three films and two Disney+ shows a year.
At the same time, Marvel Head of Streaming, Television, and Animation chief Brad Winderbaum revealed that the company was actively developing series that would likely never be produced in an attempt at quality control, saying, “We have a new system behind the scenes at Marvel Studios. We’re more like a traditional studio now; we’re developing more than we actually will produce.”
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Marvel is putting all its chips on , its imminent summer blockbuster. The film stars Ryan Reynolds as the eponymous Wade Wilson and a returning Hugh Jackman as Wolverine/Logan and seems positioned to finally bring the X-Men to the MCU proper.
Deadpool & Wolverine is predicted to have a colossal July opening weekend, which Disney hopes will (along with the recently released Inside Out 2) revitalize the financial and critical fortunes of the company.
However, it is somewhat bewildering that, at the same time that Marvel Studios is depending on an X-Men reboot to save it, the company’s attempts to produce a Blade movie are imploding. As a result, Wesley Snipes is returning to his old character and has some thoughts.
“Daywalkers Make It Look Easy”
The MCU Blade reboot has been rocky, to say the very least.
After Kevin Feige introduced Mahershala Ali as the new Daywalker, it was later announced that the script would be written by Stacy Osei-Kuffour (best known for her work on the HBO Watchmen series and Hulu‘s PEN15) and directed by Bassam Tariq, the filmmaker who helmed the critically acclaimed Mogul Mowgli (2020).
Mahershala Ali made his official debut as Blade in an uncredited, voice-only cameo in a post-credits scene of Eternals (2021), as Dane Whitman (Kit Harington), AKA the Black Knight, approaches the Ebony Blade.
Since then, the former Game of Thrones star has stated that he has been semi-officially cut from the MCU, saying, “Nothing’s in the works at the moment. If they decide to use the character in something or as a solo thing, I’d be very excited by it. But I don’t think it’s planned at the moment.”
It seems as though that Eternals post-credits scene might have had something of a curse on it because things have only slowed down in the years since.
Osei-Kuffour was replaced by X-Men ’97 creator Beau DeMayo (who has also been canned by Marvel), then by Michael Starrbury, then True Detective creator Nic Pizzolatto, and then Michael Green. Currently, Eric Pearson is said to be working on the script, making him the sixth writer to be publicly involved.
Bassam Tariq left the project in 2022, saying, “It’s been an honor working with the wonderful folks at Marvel. We were able to put together a killer cast and crew. Eager to see where the next director takes the film.”
While that sounds amicable, it is noteworthy that Tariq dropped out a mere two months before principal photography was set to begin; something pretty huge must have happened behind the scenes to scrap production that late in the game.
His replacement, Yann Demange, has now also dropped out of the Blade movie for unspecified reasons. The movie is currently without a director, which is very bad news for a movie that was originally scheduled for release in November 2023. It has since been delayed to September 2024, then February 2025, then November 2025.
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At various points, the Blade movie has apparently been rewritten from page one, transforming from a period piece to a gritty action movie. Actor Aaron Pierre, who was announced in an unspecified supporting role, has also dropped out of the movie, which means that Blade is having a very difficult time keeping directors, writers, or actors committed to the film, now in its fifth year of development.
Amidst all this chaos, Wesley Snipes has stepped back into the Blade conversation.
The former Marvel star posted a cryptic statement to Twitter that certainly seems to be mocking the ongoing Blade debacle, saying, “Blade, lordylordylordy 👀 folks still lookin for the secret sauce, ridin snowmobiles in traffic, kinda rough. Daywalkers make it look easy, don’t they? 😊 #DaywalkerKlique #Blade #Marvel” alongside a GIF of him grinning.
Blade, lordylordylordy 👀 folks still lookin for the secret sauce, ridin snowmobiles in traffic, kinda rough.
Daywalkers make it look easy, don’t they? 😊#DaywalkerKlique #Blade #Marvel pic.twitter.com/YZVAqg9egz
— Wesley Snipes (@wesleysnipes) June 16, 2024
Prior to this social media statement, Wesley Snipes has largely been supportive of the new Blade. He told ComicBook that he had talked with Mahershala Ali about the role, downplaying his attachment to the character and saying:
“We spoke. The issue of him being cast wasn’t between us. That was business. I’m cool with it. I don’t walk around as Blade, so I’m not attached to the character like that. I feel no emotional loss. Zero. I’m happy that he’s been recast and more than likely will do a great job.
Things seem to have changed enough in the meantime to cause Snipes to return to the character enough to dunk on the MCU and its development process. At this point, maybe Marvel should be paying attention to what he has to say.
What do you think is causing so many problems with Blade? Give us your Marvel theories in the comments below!
