One of the very best jokes in Marvel’s smash-hit Deadpool & Wolverine is starting to feel less like a joke and more like somebody reading tea leaves. The film features the return of Wesley Snipes as Blade, reprising his role from the beloved trilogy of solo Blade movies that began back in 1998. When a reference to alt-universe Blades is made, Snipes’ Daywalker simply replies, “There’s only ever been one Blade. Only ever gonna be one Blade.”
It’s a great joke on all fronts. Marvel’s Blade reboot, starring Mahershala Ali, has been struggling through development since 2019. It’s funny that Deadpool & Wolverine is a Marvel Studios production that is straight up making fun of another Marvel Studios production as it actively struggles. It’s also just a great character bit for Snipes and his iconic take on the Daywalker.
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All that to say, as we sit here the week of Deadpool & Wolverine‘s physical release (months after its theatrical debut), things for Marvel’s Blade reboot haven’t improved. They’ve actually seemed to get even worse.
Blade lost its second director over the summer as Yann Demange exited the project. More writers have been brought on to try and crack a script that has gone through several enormous changes over the last few years. Fantastic Four and Thunderbolts scribe Eric Pearson is the latest writer to take on Marvel’s Blade, which brings the total number of potential Blade writers to six.
The cast has also changed quite a bit as Blade has limped through development. Both Delroy Lindo and Aaron Pierre (recently named DC’s new Green Lantern) left Blade after initially being cast. For now, only Ali and Mia Goth remain on the call sheet.
This week, Disney finally pulled Blade off the release schedule, which felt like a move that was destined to happen. Not only did a November 2025 release date feel unrealistic without a director attached, but Disney CEO Bob Iger previously said during a quarterly earnings presentation that the company would be focusing on just three theatrical Marvel movies each year. 2025 already has Captain America: Brave New World, Thunderbolts*, and The Fantastic Four: First Steps slated for release.
Some of the issues that have plagued Blade are no fault of the studio or those involved with the movie. A global pandemic and industry-wide strikes have both shut productions down since Blade was announced at San Diego Comic-Con back in 2019. When Blade seemed ready to get rolling last year, the strikes put it on hold and it still hasn’t found its way back to life.
Those issues can’t be helped, but they’re far from the only reasons Blade has yet to see the light of day. There have been so many stories and reports floating around about the wide variety of different approaches Marvel has taken with this film, which should theoretically be a pretty straight-forward affair. Every one of these reports should be taken with a grain of salt, but there have been far too many over the last couple of years for there not to be some truth to the situation, especially when so many writers have exited the project.
Marvel and the creative teams that have been assembled for Blade just can’t land on something they’re happy with. It now feels like Blade is back at square one, with Eric Pearson writing a script that will hopefully please Kevin Feige, Mahershala Ali, and a yet-to-be-named director (some conflicting reports suggest Demange is still attached). Blade has no release date and the next couple of years are going to be focused on the upcoming Avengers: Secret Wars saga.
Ryan Coogler and Michael B. Jordan have been able to write, pitch, cast, shoot, and soon release a whole vampire blockbuster in a fraction of the time that Blade has been in development. Their film, Sinners, isn’t part of a major franchise or existing IP, so it hasn’t needed all of the same approvals and oversight as a Marvel movie, but it’s still astounding to see in real time just how quickly a similar project can come together when things are going smoothly.
At some point, you start to wonder if Wesley Snipes had it right when he was shooting Deadpool & Wolverine. He’s the only Blade we’ve ever had on the big screen, and it doesn’t seem like another one will be showing up any time soon.
