It should SERIOUSLY not be this hard to make a movie whose basic premise is ‘cool black guy kills a bunch of vampires, sometimes using katanas’, but alas, Marvel Studios has found a way.
In the latest stumble for their ‘infamously stuck in development hell’ attempt to bring Blade into the Marvel Cinematic Universe, following a number of delays and setbacks to its production, Marvel has now completely removed the Daywalker’s solo film from their upcoming 2025 release schedule.
RELATED: Marvel’s ‘Blade’ Reboot Suffers Yet Another Stake Through The Heart As Film Loses Second Director
As relayed to the public by numerous entertainment reporters including Deadline’s Anthony D’Alessandro, this development regarding the Mahershala Ali-led project was first confirmed on the morning of October 22nd when an update to the House of Mouse’s theatrical plans revealed that not only was Blade no longer set for its November 7th, 2025 premiere date, but also that its slot had subsequently been given to the next Predator franchise entry, Predator: Badlands.
And while it certainly doesn’t inspire confidence in the titular vampire hunter’s MCU prospects, at current and without any official word from either Marvel Studios, Disney, or Ali himself, it seems this latest scheduling change is currently being considered as an ‘indefinite delay’ rather than a full-on cancellation.
To this same end, neither of these three entities, nor anyone related to them, have yet offered a public comment on this latest Blade-related setback.
Per previous reports (and as noted above), this is far from the first production-related setback to befall what is shaping up to be one of the MCU’s biggest fumbles.
First announced in 2019 at that year’s San Diego Comic-Con, two years after the fact, the film would officially receive its first director in the form of Mogul Mowgli director Bassam Tariq.
However, just a year later, it was announced that he would be exiting the MCU due to “continued shifts in [Marvel’s] production schedule”.
“Bassam is no longer moving forward as director of Blade but will remain an executive producer on the film,” Marvel told The Hollywood Reporter. “We appreciate Bassam’s talent and all the work he’s done getting Blade to where it is.”
RELATED RUMOR: Marvel Studios ‘Blade’ Reboot With Mahershala Ali Going Back To Basics Of “Killing Vampires”
Then, in 2022, Marvel Studios tapped Lovecraft Country director Yann Demange to step in to the director’s chair.
But like Bassam before him, Demange would only stay attached for roughly a year-and-a-half before, as reported in June 2024 by TheWrap, he likewise chose to leave the project.
And that’s to say nothing of the fact that across its thus far five years in production hell, Blade has gone through at least six total script revisions, which according to rumors have all been done in service of trying to navigate the project away from its original intention of introducing Blade’s daughter as the franchise’s main anti-vampire fighter in favor of actually focusing on the man himself.
Further adding how its release date has been pushed back three times prior to this latest delay, Marvel Studios boss Kevin Feige reportedly outright yelling in anger over the film’s abysmal quality, and the public complaint from Ali’s attorney Shelby Weiser that her client’s Blade contract was closed “in 2019, and they still haven’t shot it, which is pretty much the craziest thing in my professional experience,” and suffice to say, at this point, it’s looking like it will take a straight-up miracle for Ali’s version of the Daywalker to ever see…well, the light of day.
In the proving-more-true-every-day words of the original cinematic Blade in Deadpool & Wolverine, “There’s only one Blade. There’s only ever gonna be one Blade.”
