Marvel Studios’ take on the superhero vampire hunter Blade is set for a further delay and a further rewrite, it seems.
We’ve seen Marvel Studios’ productions hit sticky spots before now and again, most frequently when it comes to ‘creative differences’ between filmmakers and Kevin Feige, the overlord producer of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Just today, Doctor Strange director Scott Derrickson has opened up a little as to why he chose to depart last year’s Doctor Strange In The Multiverse of Madness, claiming that it simply came down to two different visions for the film.
What we don’t see as often, though (or not publicly at least), is Marvel Studios struggling to get a project beyond the scripting stage. That’s been the case with its planned take on Blade, however, with the film already having has its release date put back twice. It looks like it may well be facing a third postponement too, given that World of Reel is reporting that Kevin Feige has ordered yet another rewrite to the script now that the writers’ strike is over.
Stacy Osei-Kuffour, Michael Starrbury and Beau DeMayo have all submitted scripts, which didn’t meet Feige’s approval. True Detective creator and writer Nic Pizzolatto was the last scribe to have a crack at a draft but it seems that his version hasn’t passed muster either, should this report prove to be accurate.
If you recall, Blade was on the verge of entering production before being shut down in early summer. The writers’ strike surely played an impact there as we’d imagine a film with a locked-down script could have conceivably continued shooting. That marked another delay in production following a similar postponement of production back in October of last year.
This film is rapidly earning the tag of ‘troubled production’ without having yet entered production, not least because it’s on its second director: ’71 director Yann Demange was hired to replace Bassam Tariq several months ago.
We’ll see what happens next, but at this point, it’s unlikely that we’ll see Blade before 2025, some six years after it was first announced by Kevin Feige at Comic Con. Mahershala Ali is set to play the titular vampire hunter whilst Mia Goth, Delroy Lindo and Aaron Pierre all feature too.
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