During Marvel’s San Diego Comic-Con 2019 appearance, Marvel Studios prez Kevin Feige announced that the studio will be producing a Blade film starring Mahershala Ali as the titular daywalker. We’ll give you a minute to process that. Get all the screams out and join us in paragraph 2.
“Here’s one I’ve heard no rumours about,” Feige said before welcoming Mahershala Ali onstage to announce the new film, officially titled Blade.
Yeah. No kidding, Kev. Blade was one of the last Marvel properties on the forefront of anyone’s mind. The first theatrical run for the character began in 1998 with Blade. Wesley Snipes starred as half-mortal half-immortal antihero. The film was well received enough to get two sequels, Blade II (directed by Guillermo del Toro), and Blade: Trinity (directed by not Guillermo del Toro). Snipes’ portrayal of the half-vampire daywalker has long been the definitive one. Snipes even turned up briefly in the first season of FX’s What We Do in the Shadows as part of a council of famous pop culture vampires.
Now Blade is coming back and if there was any way to do this, it was with Mahershala Ali in the title role. Ali has blazed a fearsome trail through the pop culture landscape in recent years. After earning his first Oscar for his performance in 2016’s Moonlight, Ali appeared in big hits like True Detective season 3, Hidden Figures, and Alita: Battle Angel. Ali also won a second Oscar for the heck of it for his work in Green Book. It’s worth noting that Ali is no stranger to Marvel projects, having portrayed villains in both Marvel’s Luke Cage and Spider-Man: Into the Spider-verse.
Spider-verse isn’t technically part of the Marvel Cinematic Universe and Luke Cage…isn’t really a part of anything anymore. So Ali is officially canonically free to turn up in his highest profile Marvel project yet.
Check back for more Blade news as it arrives.
