Kevin Feige Brings Mahershala Ali to Hall H to Announce: BLADE
During the Marvel’s Hall H presentation at San Diego Comic-Con, Marvel Studios head Kevin Feige alluded to a number of titles he didn’t have time to talk about. Namely the sequels to other films in the Marvel Cinematic Universe franchise (Guardians of the Galaxy, Black Panther, Captain Marvel). But the last minute appearance of a certain actor and the title for a certain film got everyone in San Diego talking.
Mahershala Ali stepped on the stage and put on a black hat that he had brought for himself. And the room went black, and a title came up on the screen.
Blade
That’s all it took for the entire San Diego Hall H to erupt in applause.
So, it looks like we’ll get a Disney/Marvel Vampire movie.
The Quintessential Blade
This movie, when it came out, was too much for me at the time. It had blood, sexual content, intense action scenes and all the things my parents weren’t comfortable having me see back in 1998.
I saw it anyway.
And it was an uncensored sensory trip for my film experiences. I don’t think I saw anything as violent or as far out as this film until I watched Braveheart.
The original Blade was a definite R rating. If Marvel/Disney goes this route, it’ll be a film property that fully dives into adult content. The only recent properties of Disney/Marvel to do this was the Netflix Marvel series in Jessica Jones, Daredevil, Luke Cage, Iron Fist and The Punisher.
With that said, it has to be rated R. It has to be dark. Blood, violence, sexual content, everything that made the original what it was. I don’t think the desired impact will be there if it falls short of those things.
The Nostalgia Factor
Now we have Marvel Studios, headed by Disney, taking up the title with Mahershala Ali playing the role of the titular character. After the initial hype of the night in the possibilities of the upcoming Blade reboot, there’s a bit of the reluctance in Disney retrying something so iconic a film that it etched itself into our young minds like other films in the past did.
Recently, they’ve tried to do it with Aladdin, with Lion King, and Beauty and the Beast. And as iconic as the animated features were for our youth, the live-action remakes didn’t live up to the originals for the most part. They offered something new in some ways, but in very many others fall short of our nostalgic expectations.
And Disney, or Marvel, is banking on that nostalgia once again. But with a title that took a dive into darkness and the vampire world. However, I am hesitant given the track record of Disney’s reboot/remake film library. Sure, it has gotten them a few dollars at the box office, but they hardly had any lasting impact as the originals did. So, they need to do something innovative with the title.
Another Stokes
Mahershala Ali was in film before, namely in Green Book, which won Best Film at the Oscars. And in Alita: Battle Angel. He also had another role in a Marvel series. He was the villain Cornel “Cottonmouth” Stokes in Season 1 of the Netflix/Marvel series Luke Cage.
Keep in mind, the Marvel machine has been recycling characters from film to Netflix before. Alfre Woodard played a smaller role in Captain America: Civil War before playing the role of Mariah Stokes in two seasons of Luke Cage. So it’s no small stretch to see the other main villain of season 1 of the same show take on a role in a Marvel film.
But what do you think of the Blade announcement? Sound off in the comments below or let’s talk about it on social media!
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