>"If they wanted to do it, we would've done it. So I have to move on, and I have moved on. I don't really want to be known for remakes. I’d love to do original work that resonates with people and impacts them in unique ways. So, I'm good. Again, you had me under contract, they have billions of dollars, if they wanted to do the movie, we would've done the movie. So we're not doing the movie.”>”No offense to them. I've been doing this professionally for pushing 30 years now, and one thing I've learned is that what is for you is for you and what is not is not. For whatever reason, that project is not for me. I feel ready to move on from the Blade questions. Those questions are for them. They didn't want to do it, so they should answer that question."https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-news/mahershala-ali-marvel-blade-1236660841/
Production timeline.>FEBRUARY 2019 – Mahershala Ali approaches Marvel Studios about producing and starring in the movie with plans to make Blade as “as big as Black Panther.”>MARCH 2020 – Development is paused due to the COVID-19 pandemic.>FEBRUARY 2021 – Stacy Osei-Kuffour (HBO’s “Watchmen”) is hired to write the script. It is PG-13, set in 1920s New Orleans, and follows Blade protecting his estranged daughter from a vampire lord who plans to use her blood to create an army of vampires immune to sunlight.>SEPTEMBER 2021 – Bassam Tariq (“Mogul Mowgli”) is hired to direct the movie. Ali and Tariq aim to make a prestige film.>NOVEMBER 2021 – Delroy Lindo is cast as Blade’s mentor Jamal Afari. Blade makes a voice cameo in “Eternals”, another prestige project.>FEBRUARY 2022 – Aaron Pierre is cast as vampire lord Aaron Thorne.>JUNE 2022 – Milan Ray is cast as Blade’s daughter Zora Brooks. Casting underway for Blade’s allies Rachel Van Helsing, Quincy Harker and Taj Nital.>JULY 2022 – Marvel announces November 3, 2023 release date.>SEPTEMBER 2022 – Marvel decides the script lacks action and that Tariq is not prepared to handle a big budget action movie. Production is delayed, Tariq is fired, and Beau DeMayo (“X-Men ‘97”) is hired to rewrite the script, but later fired after clashing with producers. Lindo, Pierre and Ray are released from their contracts.>OCTOBER 2022 – Marvel shits release to September 6, 2024.>NOVEMBER 2022 – Michael Starrbury (“When They See Us”) is hired to write a brand new script. It is still PG-13, set in 1920s New Orleans, and follows Blade protecting Zora from a demon queen who plans to use her blood to create an army of vampires immune to sunlight. Ali personally chooses Yann Demange (“’71”) to direct over Marvel’s workman candidates.
>APRIL 2023 – Mia Goth is cast as demon queen Lilith. She wields the Ebony Blade, and an ancestor of Kit Harington’s Dane Whitman is featured to connect with Blade’s appearance in “Eternals”. Ali dislikes the script’s tone and hires Nic Pizzolato (“True Detective”) to add more horror, but he departs later that month due to the impending 2023 Hollywood writers’ strikes.>MAY 2023 – Production is paused due to the strikes, with plans to begin filming immediately after the strikes are settled.>JUNE 2023 – Marvel shifts release to February 14, 2025.>SEPTEMBER 2023 – Ali and Marvel reassess the project and redevelop it into a standalone, lower-budget, R-rated story set in present day.>NOVEMBER 2023 – Michael Green (“Logan”) is hired to write a new script. It still follows Blade protecting a girl from demon queen Lilith, but the girl is reportedly no longer his daughter and is now a teenager rather than a child. Marvel shifts release to November 5, 2025.>JUNE 2024 –Demange leaves the project due to the constant delays. Eric Pearson (“The Fantastic Four: First Steps”) is hired to polish Green’s script.>OCTOBER 2024 – Marvel removes the movie from the 2025 release calendar and leaves it undated until they have a new director and filming schedule.>DECEMBER 2024 – Marvel decides to release the movie only after the Multiverse Saga concludes in 2027. Ali grows frustrated.>FEBRUARY 2025 – Marvel approaches directors including Cary Fukunaga (“True Detective”) and Chad Stahelski (“John Wick”) about potentially helming the project. Fukunaga’s approach doesn’t match Marvel’s, while Stahelski is interested but has scheduling conflicts.>MARCH 2025 – Marvel puts the film on indefinite hold as priorities shift towards “Spider-Man: No Way Home”, “Avengers: Doomsday” and “Avengers: Secret Wars”.YOU ARE HERE >JULY 2026 – Marvel officially cancels the project and Ali quits.
In the meantime, Ali and Tariq have done “Your Mother Your Mother Your Mother”, a prestige film about a sword-wielding hitman struggling against his dark nature who must protect his estranged daughter from his enemies.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hCXfh1oB3oc
And if anyone is curious about the original script that came the closest to being filmed.>In 1920s New Orleans, Blade's estranged daughter Zora is targeted by vampire lord Aaron Thorne, who want to sacrifice her to become a daywalker.>Thorne kill Zora’s mother, but she is rescued by Blade and his adoptive mother, a voodoo priestess who created the potion to control his bloodthirst.>Zora won’t become a full vampire until she drinks blood for the first time.>Quincy Harker, a descendant of Jonathan Harker, finances vampire hunters like Blade, Rachel Van Helsing and Taj Nital.>Blade takes Zora to a settlement run by his estranged adoptive father and former vampire hunter Jamal Afari. Jamal adopted and trained Blade after his mother was bitten while pregnant.>The vampires attack the train, but Blade and Zora escape and reach the settlement. Jamal exiled Blade for accidentally killing his adoptive brother, and their mother followed him.>The vampires attack the settlement, capture Zora and kill Jamal. Rachel and Taj rescues Blade and they figure out Harker betrayed them. He has made a pact with Thorne to kill the other vampire factions in exchange for Zora, confident that the ritual won’t work and they can wipe out Thorne’s faction afterwards.>Blade, Rachel and Taj track down the vampires, stop the ritual and rescue Zora, though Taj dies in battle.>Blade kills Thorne, but almost succumbs to the bloodthirst since he’s been without his potion until Zora helps him regain control.>Zora moves in with the priestess, who uses the potion to subdue Zora’s thirst her entire life. She never becomes a vampire, grows old, marries, has kids and dies of old age in 1990s.>The ageless Blade attends Zora’s funeral where he has a brief interaction with his grandson who doesn’t know who he is before returning to his crusade.https://comicbookmovie.com/blade/blade-plot-leak-reveals-scrapped-plans-for-1920s-set-movie-the-daywalkers-daughter-and-more-a226195
>>154856327He got shafted hard by the failure of the first few movies after Endgame and the subsequent double back the MCU did to memberberries to try and win audiences over again
>>154856327Not a big surprise. Kevin Fiege has already been talking about it in the past tense for a while now.
he has this tho
>>154856327All I've ever heard about this movie has been about the troubled production, sounds like it's probably for the best to shelf it.
Why was he cast in the first place? Why is Marvel so obsessed with setting it in NOLA?Just do a straightforward Vampires in London story.
>>154856327Feige rolled out the red carpet for ghost rider and the goose, so no wonder ali was pissed and fucked offFeige is so Faggy
>>154857453Also, he's a fantastic actor, but he doesn't have any martial arts skills. He's a guy in his 50s who's in decent shape, not a lifelong stunt performer. You can't just point a camera at a great actor and expect the kind of insanely fluid, inventive fight scenes the original Blade trilogy pulled off.
>>154856327Feel bad for the guy. He clearly seemed to care for the project (sticking onto it for 7 fucking years is proof enough) and I'm sure he could've done a decent enough Blade, but Marvel fucked up the MCU so bad they had to hard pivot six different fucking times and just left it to rot.
Prophetic.
>>154857640Might as well make a movie with Snipes at this point lmao
>>154857453Mahershala Ali had just come off his second Oscar win and Marvel had just come off Black Panther. Marvel and disney legitimately believed black panther deserved those Oscar nominations and that it was a geniune prestige film and decided Oscar caliber superhero comics were it's future. So they green lit Blade and the Eternals and decided they were going to be their next big serious mcu films. Marvel also wanted to find the next Chadwick Boseman so they could whore both of them out after RDJ and Chris Evans left after end game and Ali was hot shit at the time.Then eternals became the mcu's first and biggest flop since the hulk and Bosemam died and Ali's career didn't exactly take off. So marvel decided prestige movies weren't their future after all and deprioritized blade but kept Ali on the hook so they wouldn't piss him off and be accused of the racism. That last part didn't work out
>>154856783Moon Knigger?
>>154857453>NOLAIt's a very well used location for the vampire genre. Interview with a Vampire happens there, and bunch of CW shows based off of books.
>>154856350>Marvel decides the script lacks actionThere were only two fight scenes and Blade dies in the second one.
>>154857709Actual insanity if they thought that was a prestige film.
This is why
>>154858096Blade is such an easy concept, it's basically John wick with vampires before there was John wick without vampires.Just put on the trench coat and start killing the vampires already.
>>154856350>beau demayo is hired then fired in less than a monththe fuck is going on with the producers>>154856395wtf he gets more powerful after being bitten by morbius. they could have had a movie build up to morbius and then he would have gotten a powerboost and fight stronger enemies. like he could have graduated to demons and shitthey can have punisher kill mooks constantly but they can't have a guy that does that with vampires? he doesn't have to solo each one, dude can have traps and all kinds of different weapons>>154857578>can't point a camera and expect fight scenesfuck off liam neeson was in his 40s for episode 1
>>154856386Everything about this looks like something I'd watch except that pesky "prestige film"Just make an action movie, guys. This is a perfectly good premise for a fun action movie
>>154856327What an absolute waste. And it's not as if making a Blade movie is risky since there have already been three of them.
>>154858096I thought the Surf Dracula thing was a bit overplayed, but fucking hell, Just let the mfer surf already.
>>154856350yeah, this is 100% on marvel for fucking up so much.
>>154857899Yes yes we all love Anne Rice, but it has fuck-all to do with Blade beyond that one Don McGregor run that got cancelled 3 issues in.
>>154856386Pretty sure the reason why Tariq didn't like the rewrites was because he wanted Ali's blade to be Muslim and to be Marvel's main muslim representation moving forward. Marvel didn't want that at all. That's how you get this film.
On the bright side, the costumes they had for Blade weren’t totally wasted and ended up being used for Sinners. https://variety.com/2025/film/news/sinners-costumes-marvel-blade-reboot-not-shooting-1236447479/
>>154859659Which becomes controversial because Ali is actually an Ahmadi type of Muslim, which is a heresy among Muslim orthodoxies since it does not view Muhammad as the final prophet because they include Ahmadi who proclaimed himself to be the promised Messiah of Islam and Vishnu for the Hindu. He's basically the Mormon of Islam.
>>154857539>Feige rolled out the red carpet for ghost rider and the gooseHe also did it for Ali and Blade.
