Blade movie reportedly canned by Marvel

Bad news if Deadpool & Wolverine left you craving a Blade movie: the standalone reboot film of the vampire hunter may have been canned entirely.

It’s not the greatest surprise in Hollywood, after Marvel removed Blade from its release schedule in October 2024, but The Playlist claims development of the film is “shuttered for the moment.”

And it sounds as though just about the only firm part of the movie, announced more than half a decade ago, was star Mahershala Ali.

Just last week we heard John Wick director Chad Stahelski might have been in line to direct the film, but this latest report suggests otherwise.

The most interesting part here, though, is that Blade could still be coming to the MCU, with Mahershala Ali in the role. But we’ll see him enter the action as part of another film.

The future of Marvel

The obvious candidate is Midnight Sons, which has not been announced by Marvel, but was reportedly “fast tracked” by the studio for development in late 2024.

There was a game adaptation of this comic series back in 2022, Midnight Suns, featuring 17 Marvel icons including Blade. It was a commercial failure despite being well-reviewed and generally well-regarded, mapping superheroes onto XCOM style gameplay.

The source comic sees Blade team up with Ghost Rider, Morbius and others to take on Lilith, the “mother of all demons” who wants to take over the Earth.

Doctor Strange is also a key part of Midnight Sons, giving Marvel a more popular character to help ease more casual fans into the concept. Despite receiving mixed reviews, 2022’s Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness made almost $1 billion in cinemas.

All of this is pretty far off, though. The next megaton Marvel movie that may determine whether these rumoured plans pan out at all is Avengers: Doomsday, due on May 1, 2026.

We’ve recently been flooded with casting confirmations on the project, including Chris Hemsworth (Thor), Vanessa Kirby (Sue Storm), Anthony Mackie (Captain America), Sebastian Stan (Bucky Barnes), Letitia Wright (Shuri), Paul Rudd (Ant-Man), Wyatt Russell (John Walker), Tenoch Huerta (Namor), Simu Liu (Shang Chi), Florence Pugh (Yelena Belva), Kelsey Grammar (Beast), David Harbour (Red Guardian), Tom Hiddleston (Loki), Patrick Stewart (Professor X), Ian McKellen (Magneto), Alan Cumming (Nightcrawler) and more. Yikes.

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