Mahershala Ali was reportedly ready to walk away from Marvel Studios’ Blade after one version of the script saw him as the fourth lead in the film.
According to a recent article from Variety, Ali almost left Marvel’s Blade reboot over script issues. Kevin Feige announced a new Blade movie was in the works with Ali at San Diego Comic-Con in 2019; however, progress has been stalled since then as a number of writers and directors have been hired and then departed from the project.
One person familiar with the production told Variety that, at one point, the script for the upcoming Blade movie “morphed into a narrative led by women and filled with life lessons.” As a result, Ali’s Blade was downgraded to the fourth lead in the movie.
Ali was ready to exit the project before Feige hired Michael Green — who co-wrote 2017’s Logan and 2017’s Blade Runner 2049 — to rewrite the script. At this time, Ali is still attached to the picture. Blade currently has a release date of February 14, 2025.
Who has been involved with Marvel’s Blade movie?
In February 2021, Stacy Osei-Kuffour was hired to write the script for Blade while Bassam Tariq was hired to direct the movie. Tariq left the project approximately a year later and was replaced by Yann Demange, while Michael Starrbury was brought on to rewrite the script. Nic Pizzolatto then joined the production in April 2023 as another writer before Green was brought in October 2023.
Filming on Blade was supposed to begin in June 2023; however, production was delayed due to the Writers Guild of America (WGA) strike and, now, the Screen Actors Guild-American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (SAG-AFTRA) strike. According to Variety, Marvel is now trying to make the movie with a budget of less than $100 million.
So far, Ali has only had an uncredited voice cameo appearance in the MCU as Blade in the mid-credits scene of 2021’s Eternals.
