Movies

'Blade' Reboot Will Be Part Of Marvel Phase 5 Or Later, Mahershala Ali Pitched Marvel On The Idea

Blade Reboot release
By Chris Evangelista/

While other Marvel movies mentioned at San Diego Comic-Con over the weekend offered up more details, the big reveal everyone was talking about was the super-brief, last-minute announcement that Mahershala Ali would star in a Blade reboot. While next to no details were revealed at Comic-Con, more Blade reboot info has started to trickle in, including a confirmation the Blade reboot release won't happen until after Phase 4, and that Mahershala Ali personally requested the role.

How did Mahershala Ali end up landing the role of Blade? Simple: he asked for it. In the video above, Marvel Studios President Kevin Feige confirms that Ali personally called him up to ask for the role. And THR confirms that shortly after winning his second Oscar for Green Book, Ali contacted Feige and "came right out and said that he wanted to do Blade."

So when might we see this new Blade movie? According to Feige, not for a while. Because the Phase 4 line-up revealed at SDCC is the full line-up. As Feige told Collider:

"It is the complete Phase Four the way I announced the complete Phase Three five years ago—things can move, things can change as they did if you go back and look at what we talked about five years ago for Phase Three, but we've been working on this for quite a while and it's pretty set. But there are always changes possible."

Feige then went on to confirm Blade isn't part of Phase 4, which means we won't see Ali as the half-human/half-vampire for a while – not until Phase 5 at least, and maybe even later. That puts it somewhere after 2022. It's worth noting that while Marvel loves announcing their plans years in advance like this, plans change. For instance: remember when Inhumans was going to be a movie?

In any case, casting Ali as Blade is a great choice. While I'm not sure Blade as a character fits into the current MCU as we know it, the folks at Marvel have a few years to iron that out. I just hope they don't water the character down. I'm not a stickler for R-ratings, but I feel like Blade is the one comic book property that really needs to be rated R. And with that in mind, I really hope Ali gets to say "Some motherf***ers are always trying to ice skate uphill."

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