Rumor: Marvel Studios To Delay ‘Blade’ For The Fourth Time To Prevent ‘Fantastic Four’ From Competing Against DC’s ‘Superman: Legacy’
There’s been a lot of behind-the-scenes news about the upcoming MCU film Blade and none of it has been good. Unfortunately for Disney, it looks like that trend is going to continue as rumors seem to suggest that the film may be hit with yet another delay — after being plagued with months worth of production issues.
Having already been delayed in three occasions, it appears it’s one of Marvel Studios’ own upcoming films that will cause the project to get another pushback.
According to industry insider Jeff Sneider, Marvel and Disney might reschedule the release of Fantastic Four — which is expected to hit movie theaters on July 25th, 2025 — and move it up to November of that same year, which is when Blade was initially expected to release.
FandomWire reports that this movie is done in an effort to avoid competing with James Gunn’s Superman: Legacy, which is scheduled to be released just two weeks before Fantastic Four — set to debut DC’s new cinematic universe on July 11th, 2025.
Sneider says that Marvel could give up Blade‘s November 7th, 2025 spot — pushing the Mahershala Ali-led project back to 2026. Blade’s production has been met with nothing but turmoil since the film’s announcement back in 2019 during San Diego Comic-Con.
Originally set to release on November 3, 2023, the movie has been delayed twice to September 6, 2024 and now November 7, 2025. Bassam Tariq was hired to direct by the MCU Blade film back in September 2021 but Tariq left the project just a year later due to the film’s production shifts and creative differences.
Since then Yann Demange has been given the director’s chair while Michael Green was hired to pen a new script for the film. Thus far, the film has had six screenwriters who have been involved in the project.
Last year, Sneider claimed that Mahershala Ali was very frustrated with the creative process of the film. At one point, it was rumored that Marvel Studios wanted the film to focus on replaced the titled character with a female counterpart who was going to take the mantle of Blade for future MCU projects.
At the time, a report by Variety’s Tatiana Siegel claimed that one person familiar with the scripts saw the early versions of the film’s plot involved a female-led narrative filled with “life lessons.” A deeper look into the report claimed that Ali’s Blade was almost positioned as the “fourth lead” in his own movie taken lesser importance than the characters the original writers wanted to push.
Things have gotten so bad, there had been rumors of Ali quitting the project after years of issues, but Jeff Sneider claims there is no truth to Ali leaving. Per ComingSoon, Sneider says the rumors of Ali quitting are “totally false,” noting that the script for the movie is finally beginning to round into shape to the point where the actor will be “comfortable moving forward” with the film.
Back in November, a report claimed that the Marvel executive responsible for the film had allegedly been fired for lying to Marvel Studios head Kevin Feige about how disastrous Blade was shaping up to be.
“They said it’s one of the few times that anyone has actually ever heard Kevin Feige yell at someone,” Sneider claimed at the time.
Marvel Studios is committed to releasing Blade as part of the MCU’s Phase Six. After the financial disasters of Phase 4 and the current Phase 5, one has to wonder when Feige, or even The Walt Disney Company’s Bob Iger, may step in to make some major changes.
It is worth noting that the last MCU film that was released The Marvels was also delayed four times and ended up being the lowest grossing MCU film of all time.
NEXT: Former ‘Blade’ Script Writer Denies His Script Was A “Narrative Led By Women”
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