Sinners Used Costumes From A Marvel Movie Stuck In Development Hell
Ryan Coogler's "Sinners" might be the biggest vampire film of 2025, slashing its way through the box office to become the highest grossing original film in recent memory, but there's another vampire hunter who has been waiting in the shadows ready to strike: Mahershala Ali's "Blade."
After Ali won an Oscar for his performance in "Green Book," his first order of business was to call Marvel Studios to throw his hat in the ring to play "Blade." That touched off a race to bring the film to life, but it's been stuck in development hell for years, both due to Disney and Marvel's shifting priorities and the writers and actors guild strikes of 2023.
But Marvel's loss turned into a gain for "Sinners." Both films shared Oscar-winning costume designer Ruth Carter, and when "Sinners" sprinted into production, the filmmakers were able to leverage that connection to help fill out the world of the movie, as producer Sev Ohanian explained in an interview with ScreenCrush:
"At one point, [Blade] was going to deal with the past, around the same era as when 'Sinners' [took place]. She happened to have a warehouse full of period-appropriate clothes, and it was like, 'Yo, we've gotta shoot this movie like tomorrow,' and Marvel was generous enough and kind enough to let us basically purchase it at price, and a lot of the background actors in our movie are wearing those clothes."
The team was able to take these unused "Blade" costumes to recreate the 1930s, producing a film that is both contemporary and timeless. Meanwhile, fans of "Blade" and Mahershala Ali are left to ask "what if?"
Sinners gives us a small peak at what Blade could have been
Ali's "Blade" was originally announced at San Diego Comic-Con 2019 to much fanfare from fans who see the original as the first comic book movie to truly be cool, but since then the production has been absolutely cursed, running into delay after delay with seemingly no actual start in sight after losing multiple directors.
The use of these "Blade" costumes in "Sinners" gives us a hint at what at least one of these possible versions of "Blade" would have looked like: a 1920s period piece written by "X-Men '97" showrunner Beau DeMayo. According to The Hollywood Reporter, this version of the film also required Marvel to build a massive train set that was ultimately never used, because the new direction is taking Blade to the present day (if the film is ever released at all, that is).
If you are a Blade fan who is upset about all this, know that Mahershala is too: he nearly walked off the project completely because of these stops and starts. He's managed to get back to work thanks to "Jurassic World Rebirth" and has an upcoming film with potential "Blade" director Bassam Tariq coming up next. Whether we will ever get to actually see Mahershala Ali fight vampires in "Blade" remains to be seen, but at the very least, we have the characters in "Sinners" to keep us safe.