The Marvel Cinematic Universe’s first take on vampire slayer Blade was set to go in front of the cameras next month before its director ‘stepped away’.
The MCU take on Blade isn’t going to be arriving next November as planned, although you most likely knew that. With news emerging last week that director, Bassam Tariq had ‘stepped away’ from the production, a delay to filming was always likely. Now the film’s delay has been confirmed, with no new release date announced.
Progress on the Marvel Cinematic Universe Blade film has been pretty uneven ever since Kevin Feige announced – alongside Mahershala Ali – that it would be reviving the fearsome vampire-hunter during 2019’s Comic-Con. There were some confused tweets from the company’s Indian Twitter account about release dates at one point, and news on the film was scarce, even whilst other MCU projects were getting the limelight.
Whilst we know that Ali will be playing the fearsome vampire slayer, that’s about it right now. Watchmen scribe Stacy Osei-Kuffour penned the original script and given the quality of that series, it was considered to be an exciting appointment. However, reports are widely suggesting that Moon Knight writer Beau DeMayo has been bought in to do a page one rewrite of the screenplay.
Whilst it’s impossible to know exactly what’s going on beneath the surface, we’ve been here before with Marvel. The news of DeMayo’s appointment, not to mention Tariq’s departure over creative differences suggests that the studio might be aiming to bring the project further into its ‘house style’. It’s a process that has led to director departures in the past, including Edgar Wright and Patty Jenkins leaving projects following similar disagreements.
Should the studio turn things around pretty quickly, there’s still a chance that the film could still make it into its current window between The Marvels in July 2023 and Captain America: New World Order in May 2024. There’s a sizeable gap there that means Marvel wouldn’t have to reshuffle the order of its releases. We’ll let you know more as we hear it as this one seems to be moving pretty quickly.
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