Cody
There was a huge surprise at the San Diego Comic-Con back in July of 2019 when Mahershala Ali, fresh off winning Academy Awards for his performances in the films Moonlight (2016) and Green Book (2018), joined Kevin Feige, the President of Marvel Studios, on stage during the Marvel panel to help announce that the studio was working on a Blade reboot, with Ali taking on the title role. And for more than six years, Ali has just been sitting on the bench, waiting for Marvel to crack the script for the Blade movie while the traction from his Oscar wins has dissipated. The more time passes since the announcement, the more fans doubt this Blade will be worth the wait – and in the meantime, the shine of Ali’s impending MCU debut was dimmed even more when original Blade star Wesley Snipes reprised the role for a brief appearance in Deadpool & Wolverine. It was so fun to see Snipes play Blade again, a lot of fans (and Deadpool star Ryan Reynolds) started urging Marvel to just go ahead and make an Old Man Blade movie. And they probably should.
Development Hell
A lot of time has gone by since we heard the rumor that Mahershala Ali is getting “increasingly frustrated” with the long development process on his Blade movie. Delroy Lindo and Aaron Pierre have been cast alongside him as the years have gone by, but are no longer involved, as their characters have apparently been written out. Lindo, who has a role in Sinners, recently shared some information on who his Blade character would have been. We’ve heard that, at one point, the reboot was going to be set in the 1920s – and that’s why the 1930s-set Sinners ended up using some wardrobe that was originally intended for Blade. The fact that they were considering sending a character who was introduced in the 1970s back into the ’20s shows just how far off-track the project drifted while Marvel struggled to differentiate their take on Blade from the version we saw in the Snipes movies.
Writers who have worked on the script include Stacy Osei-Kuffour (Watchmen), Michael Starrbury (When They See Us), True Detective creator Nic Pizzolatto (who worked with Ali on season 3 of that show), Beau DeMayo (The Witcher: Nightmare of the Wolf), Michael Green (Logan), and Eric Pearson, who has worked on Thor: Ragnarok, Black Widow, Thunderbolts*, and The Fantastic Four: First Steps. Feige confirmed that three or four different versions of Blade have been developed over the years, two of which would have been period pieces. Recently, he said, “We’ve landed on modern day, and that’s what we’re focusing on.“
And yet, just two weeks ago, another rumor came up: that the solo Blade movie has been scrapped, and Marvel now intends to introduce Ali’s Blade in Midnight Sons, a team-up movie that would feature other supernatural characters, potentially including Moon Knight, Ghost Rider, and more. Because if you can’t figure out what kind of story to center on one character, just drop him into a movie with a bunch of other characters.
Old Man Blade
So while Marvel continues to ponder how to bring Ali’s Blade into the MCU, why not knock out an Old Man Blade movie (or, at least, a Disney+ Special Presentation like The Punisher is getting) with Snipes? Unlike the Ali version, there’s no need to have to try to reinvent the wheel with this one. The foundation is established. Just give Snipes a trench coat, sunglasses, and some cool weapons, and he’s ready to slash and blast his way through a whole new generation of vampires. He’s decades older than he was in Blade (1998), Blade II (2002), and Blade: Trinity (2004), but his appearance in Deadpool & Wolverine proves that he’s still 100% convincing in the role.
Whatever Blade project Ali ends up working on, it’s still a couple of years away, so let Snipes and the fans have some fun instead of making everyone continue to twiddle their thumbs. It’s a shame that Ali has been benched so long that his MCU debut is going to be seen as a questionable project from the start, but the damage has already been done.
The fact is, any Blade project Marvel makes at this point is going to be an Old Man Blade project. Wesley Snipes is 63, but Mahershala Ali is about to turn 52 – which may not be old in the grand scheme of things, but it is an advanced age for someone who’s supposed to play Blade but hasn’t had the chance to yet, and doesn’t look like he’s going to in the next few months.
What do you think of the long-delayed plan to have Mahershala Ali play Blade in the MCU, and would you like to see an Old Man Blade movie starring Wesley Snipes? Let us know by leaving a comment below.
