Marvel’s 'Blade' gets new director and writer, still set to slay in 2024
The status of the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s Blade movie starring Mahershala Ali has been uncertain since its former director, Bassam Tariq, exited the project just a month before it started production.
It seems, however, that the Blade film is back on track with a new director and writer on board. According to Deadline, filmmaker Yann Demange has signed on to direct the film and Michael Starrbury is working on the new script. Production is now on schedule to start shooting in Atlanta next year.
Demange is best known for his work on the film ‘71 starring Jack O’Connell, and for 2018’s White Boy Rick, which starred Matthew McConaughey. He also directed an episode of Lovecraft Country and is also set to direct a series reboot of the 1980s David Cronenberg film, Scanners.
RELATED: MCU gets shaken up with release date changes; Blade pushed out nearly a year
Starrbury is also new to the MCU. His previous credits include an episode of When They See It and two episodes of Colin in Black & White. According to Deadline, Marvel took their time with “weeks of meetings and pitches” to find the right folks for the job. Luckily for us, however, they also managed to find the right folks within a timeframe that doesn’t go against the movie’s recently-changed premiere date of Sept. 6, 2024.
We first found out that Marvel was working on a Blade movie way back in 2019 during San Diego Comic-Con. This won’t be the first movie about the daywalker vampire-human hybrid, of course, as Wesley Snipes first played the role in three Blade films, the first of which premiered in 1998. Those films were extremely R-rated, and while we don’t know what the rating of the MCU’s version of Blade will be, Deadline’s sources say the movie will “go with a darker tone” than what we’ve seen in past MCU projects.
We have, at least, gotten some glimpse of Ali’s Blade in the MCU — if you stuck around for the end-credit scene in Chloé Zhao’s Eternals, you heard Ali as Blade talking to Dane Whitman (Kit Harrington). In the scene, Whitman looks at the Ebony blade and says, “I’m sorry, I have to try,” as Ali’s Blade says off-camera, “Sure you’re ready for that, Mr. Whitman?”
While it remains to be seen whether Mr. Whitman is ready, we’re all more than ready to see Ali’s version of Blade join the MCU on Sept. 6, 2024.
Looking for some vampire fun? Check out Reginald the Vampire on SYFY.
