‘Blade’: Is The Reboot Of The Marvel Classic Character Dead?
In a scene in Deadpool & Wolverine, Wesley Snipes’ Blade character makes a cameo appearance. In one very meta scene, Ryan Reynolds’ Deadpool notes that there’s been “like five” different Punishers, a reference to the different actors who have played the character over the years.
Blade responds, “There’s only one Blade; there’s only ever gonna be one Blade!” Deadpool gives a third-wall-breaking knowing look at the camera. The gag here is that a revamped Blade film, starring Mahershala Ali, was announced at the San Diego Comic-Con back in the summer of 2019.
But it turns out that the Snipes version of Blade may have been onto something. Variety reports that the new Blade film has been removed from Disney’s release calendar. It was scheduled to be released on November 7, 2025. It has been replaced on Disney’s release calendar by Predator: Badlands. Variety reports that Marvel has added three untitled projects to their schedule for February 18, 2028, May 5, 2028, and November 10, 2028. The new Blade could fill one of those slots.
Blade: What’s The Status?
The Hollywood Reporter reports that Blade doesn’t currently have a director attached. Yann Demange left the film in June. Director Bassam Tariq was attached to before Demange. But the film may still be in the works. In an interview with BlackTree TV over the summer, Marvel Studios President Kevin Feige said that they don’t want to rush it; adding that they want to make the “right” Blade movie, “because there were some great Blade movies years ago,” giving props to the Snipes era of the character. The first Blade was released in 1998, followed by Blade II in 2002 and Blade: Trinity in 2004.
Next up for Marvel is Captain America: Brave New World, set for release on February 14, 2025. That film will see Anthony Mackie’s Sam Wilson taking over the role of Captain America; it will also see Harrison Ford taking the role of “Thunderbolt” Ross from William Hurt, who died at age 71 in 2022. Watch a trailer here.
Thunderbolts* is set for a May 2, 2025 release. The Fantastic 4: First Steps is due out on July 25, 2025. The cast features Pedro Pascal as Reed Richards, Ebon Moss-Bachrach as Ben Grimm, Vanessa Kirby as Sue Storm and Joseph Quinn as Johnny Storm. This will mark the super-team’s debut in the Marvel Cinematic Universe; there were FF movies in 2005 and 2007, and then there was a rebooted FF in 2015. This is a complete reboot and break from those films (although there is a reference to that franchise in Deadpool & Wolverine). Meanwhile, the Daredevil: Born Again TV series is set to debut on March 4, 2025. That series features many of the same actors that starred in the Netflix Daredevil series, which lasted three seasons from 2015 – 2018.
