We’ve known a Blade movie is coming to the Marvel Cinematic Universe since 2019. Who can forget when the film’s star—Oscar-winner Mahershala Ali—put on a hat that said “BLADE!” and caused an excited uproar in San Diego Comic-Con’s Hall H? Well, uh, it’s now 2024 and we’re still waiting to see him in action. And we will be for a lot longer. After many starts and stops, Deadline reports Marvel Studios has removed Blade from its 2025 release schedule. Instead of coming to theater on November 7, 2025 as expected, Disney will instead give that spot to Predator: Badlands.
So when might we see it? Here’s everything we know about the upcoming Blade movie.
Title
The title of this movie is simple: Blade.
Blade‘s Plot
Right now, we don’t have any plot details for Blade. But we can imagine the film will borrow from the character’s comic origins. Blade debuted in the tenth issue of Marvel’s Tomb of Dracula comic back in 1973, from writer Marv Wolfman and penciller Gene Colan. He quickly became a supremely popular character, a half-vampire killer of vampires and other occult baddies. Blade first made it to the big screen in 1998 starring Wesley Snipes. Two sequels followed—one of them good—but eventually, that franchise sort of fell by the wayside.
We do know that Blade will be rated R; the rating was recently confirmed by the movie’s director Yann Demange. Blade marks the second MCU movie to receive an R-rating, although we bet that it will be a very different R-rated experience than Deadpool 3. The rating opens up a whole new world of possibilities for the MCU movie and we can’t wait to see what how they will manifest.
Kevin Feige himself spoke about the movie recently, specifically its rating in light of Deadpool & Wolverine‘s R rating, a first for Marvel Studios.
“I mean, for the last two years as we’ve been trying to crack that movie, the most important thing for us is not rushing it and making sure we are making the right Blade movie,” he told The Hollywood Reporter. “Because there were some great Blade movies years ago — they were all rated-R. So I think that’s, like Deadpool, inherent with the character of Blade.”
Behind the Scenes
Playwright Stacy Osei-Kuffour (Watchmen) wrote an early draft of the script. In 2021, Bassam Tariq confirmed he would direct the film via The Playlist podcast. However, Tariq left the project in 2022.
The director offered a brief statement about his experience with Blade.
After Tariq’s departure, Lovecraft Country‘s Yann Demange came aboard as Blade‘s new director. However, Demange has also now left the project. In addition, Michael Starrbury wrote a new script for the vampiric movie at that point. According to The Hollywood Reporter, True Detective creator Nic Pizzolatto also joined the project to work off of Starrbury’s script as well. Additionally, Michael Green was involved with writing a Blade script in 2023.
Most recently, in the summer of 2024, Eric Pearson joined the MCU’s Blade film to write its latest script. Reportedly, Marvel’s latest plan is to write a new script over the summer and then try to find yet another new director. Hopefully, whoever comes aboard this time will actually be able to deliver a movie.
Blade‘s Cast
As mentioned above, two-time Academy Award winner Mahershala Ali will play the daywalking half-vampire badass in the upcoming Blade movie.
Delroy Lindo was originally slated to join Ali in film. We never formally learned who Lindo was playing, but we thought he could be Jamal Afari, who in the comics raised Blade and taught him all about vampire slaying. Unfortunately, due to shifts in production, Lindo has since exited the movie. Actor Aaron Pierre left the cast as well.
As we saw (or rather, heard) at the end of Eternals, Kit Harington will cross paths with Blade, reprising his role as Dane Whitman. No word yet on the status of that crossover in the new Blade iterations. Deadline has also previously reported that X and Pearl star Mia Goth intended to join the cast in an unspecified role. Once again, there is no official word on whether this casting is still in play, however, Goth recently addressed her role in the movie, seeming to indicate she is still in the mix.
Blade‘s Release Date
The Blade Marvel movie was meant to arrive in theaters on November 7, 2025. However, the earliest we can now expect it is in 2026, though with Marvel having three untitled film releases set for 2028 it could be even longer than that.
Originally published on July 20, 2019.
