Blade Movie Announcements Coming Soon Teases Marvel Studios Head

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Blade Movie Announcements Coming Soon Teases Marvel Studios Head

Appearing at Disney Investor Day 2020, Marvel Studios chief Kevin Feige promises coming updates about Mahershala Ali's Blade movie reboot.

Blade movie announcements will be coming soon, says Marvel Studios chief Kevin Feige. Starring Wesley Snipes as the Marvel vampire hunter, 1998’s Blade brought dark and violent comic book action to the big screen, much to the delight of hardcore fans. The R-rated formula proved popular with general audiences too as the movie went on to gross $131 million at the box office against a reported budget of $45 million.

With Blade having thus established itself as a viable franchise, future Oscar-winner Guillermo Del Toro took over the directorial reins for the 2002 sequel Blade II, which itself grossed $155 million. The Blade juggernaut unfortunately hit some speed bumps with 2004’s Blade: Trinity, as star Snipes reportedly became an unbearable diva on the set (Snipes recently went on record again to deny accusations of his crazy behavior). After the critically savaged third Blade film, the franchise went on hiatus for an extended period, only being recently revived with Disney now in ownership of the title and Oscar-winner Mahershala Ali set to take over for Snipes as the vampire hunting comic book anti-hero.

Little has actually been revealed thus far about the promised new Blade, beyond Ali’s involvement as the lead actor, but Marvel Studios chief Feige just hinted that more information should be coming along shortly. Speaking at the recent news-making Disney Investor Day 2020 presentation, Feige teased some impending Blade updates:

“As we announced at Comic-Con last year, we’re moving ahead with Blade, starring Academy Award winner Mahershala Ali. The development and storylines are coming together, and we’ll have announcements very, very soon.”

Given the nebulous nature of Feige’s remarks about Blade at Disney Investor Day 2020, it’s clear that the movie is in a very early stage of development and there really isn’t anything substantive to say about it at the present time. But at least fans know the movie is still on over a year after the project’s existence was initially announced at Comic-Con. It certainly sounds like things are progressing nicely, and perhaps a real update will actually be arriving soon, including details about how the Blade reboot will tackle the character and his dark comic book world.

Fans of the comic book version of Blade are obviously largely concerned about the movie preserving the tone the books, as Disney now takes over handling the long-dormant franchise. Disney of course is not known for making dark and gritty comic book movies, so many are concerned that the rough edges will be removed from Blade as the character is brought more in line with the family-friendly tone of the MCU. That being said, it’s hard to see why Marvel and Disney would even bother going ahead with a Blade movie if they didn’t mean to preserve the R-rated tone of the books as the original trilogy did. Then again, given Disney’s hugely successful track record with comic book movies, it’s possible they think they can do anything they want regardless of fans’ wishes, including make a PG13-rated Blade movie.