Has Blade finally been axed at Marvel?

For months and months, we were only getting bad and disheartening news about Marvel’s Blade, which would be entering the MCU more than 25 years after Wesley Snipes first brought the character to the big screen. Now, the bad news may be over…depending on your view of the movie. As it stands, it may be that Blade has been cancelled completely.

Multiple sources are reporting that Marvel has put Blade to rest after a string of screenwriters and directors circled, signed on and left the project. One key source this time around is The Playlist’s Rodrigo Perez, who posted a thread on X where he detailed what might really have been going behind the scenes that eventually led to Blade potentially – but not definitely – being dulled.

For starters, Perez noted that the news that Chad Stahelski signing on as director (after Bassam Tariq and Yann Demange, while apparently Cari Joji Fukunaga had also been in talks) was false. However, Mashershala Ali is still playing Blade (despite calls for Wesley Snipe to reprise, especially after his Deadpool & Wolverine cameo), although it may not be for a standalone movie. So where does that leave Ali in the MCU?

Last year, after Blade was formally removed from the release calendar, Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige insisted that Ali would for sure be playing Blade, saying, “We love the character, we love Mahershala’s version of him. And rest assured: whenever we change direction with a project, or are still trying to figure out how it fits into our schedule, we let the public know. You’re up to date on what’s going on. But I can tell you that the character will be coming to the MCU.” So does this development mean that he’ll be a surprise reveal in something like Avengers: Doomsday? More likely, it might be that Blade gets introduced to the Marvel Cinematic Universe via Midnight Sons, as Blade is part of the titular group which was first introduced in 1992.

Genuinely, the news that Blade might officially be dead as a standalone Marvel movie is no surprise as it feels like it has more or less gone nowhere of significance since first being announced more than five years ago.

How would you feel if Blade was officially dead at Marvel? Where do you want to see the character end up?

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