After years of pre-production work and “three or four” different versions of the film being considered, Marvel has finally nailed down the fact its long-awaited Blade reboot will be set in the modern day.
First announced back in 2019 and once set to begin filming in 2022, the Mahershala Ali-starring movie has struggled to get off the ground within Marvel over the past few years.
Now, Marvel boss Kevin Feige has shed light on what has held up the project, the truth about all those historical costumes Marvel gave to Ryan Coogler for use on Sinners, and offered confirmation there was a path forward for its long-gestating vampire Blade project still.
Speaking to Variety, Feige explained Blade’s continuing delays as a result of the film’s expected quality not being good enough.
“We didn’t want to simply just put a leather outfit on him and have him start killing vampires. It had to be unique,” Feige said of Ali’s take on the character. “It fell into the time when we started pulling back and saying, ‘Only accept insanely great.’ And it wasn’t ‘insanely great’ at the time.”
Here, Feige is referencing Marvel’s more recent decision to cut back on its output after admitting that, post-Avengers Endgame, it had suffered from focusing too much on quantity over quality.
“We didn’t feel like, as we often do, you can have a good script and make it a great script through production,” Feige continued. “We didn’t feel confident that we could do that on Blade, and we didn’t want to do that to Mahershala and didn’t want to do that to us.”
Marvel continued to try and develop the project, running through “three or four” iterations of a story, two of which were period pieces. At least one of these we know was due to be set around the 1920s, as production got so close to beginning there was a warehouse of costumes made — that then were left surplus to requirements.
Earlier this month, Sinners producer Sev Ohanian made the surprising revelation that these costumes were then worn on Sinners instead — something aided by the fact that costume designer Ruth Carter worked on both projects.
“She happened to have a warehouse full of period-appropriate clothes, and it was like, ‘Yo, we got to shoot this movie like tomorrow.’ And Marvel was generous enough and kind enough to let us basically purchase it at price,” Ohanian said.
Now, Feige has not only confirmed that this sale happened, but that it was a result of Marvel’s renewed focus on developing Blade as a modern day-set story instead.
“We’ve landed on modern day,” Feige said. “Which is why we could give those costumes back to Ruth, and that’s what we’re focusing on.”
All of that said, Blade’s arrival still seems some way off. The next few years will see Marvel heads down on getting Avengers: Doomsday and Avengers: Secret Wars out the door, as well as Spider-Man: Brand New Day.
And speaking of the Avengers films, with numerous other old faces returning, could we see another reappearance of Wesley Snipes’ classic version of Blade, last seen in Deadpool & Wolverine? And could Feige’s recent comments about Secret Wars acting as a “reset” for the franchise be Marvel’s way of introducing Mahershala Ali’s Blade, in the same way the studio has now said it will recast the X-Men?
Image credit: Roy Rochlin/Getty Images for Universal Pictures and Amblin Entertainment
Tom Phillips is IGN’s News Editor. You can reach Tom at [email protected] or find him on Bluesky @tomphillipseg.bsky.social
