Marvel Shutting Down The New Blade Movie For Now - Report

Marvel's Blade movie is reportedly temporarily on pause, according to The Hollywood Reporter. The news comes two weeks after director Bassim Tariq (Mogul Mowgli) exited the project--which Marvel cited as being "due to continued shifts in our production schedule."

The comics giant has not issued a statement on the news. The Hollywood Reporter speculates that although the movie is hoping to restart production in early 2023, it is now no longer likely to meet its expected November 3, 2023 release date. "They want to really get it right," an unnamed source told The Hollywood Reporter. Before Tariq's departure, production was expected to begin in November. [Update: In a subsequent report, Marvel is said to have delayed multiple movies, including Blade.]

This is also, unfortunately, far from the first delay that Blade has run into. In May 2021, the reboot film was delayed so the studio could further polish Stacy Osei-Kuffour's script. At that time, filming was expected to get underway sometime in July 2022.

Marvel's Blade stars Mahershala Ali (Moonlight, Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse) in the title role, with the cast also including Delroy Lindo (The Good Fight, The Harder They Fall) and Aaron Pierre (Old). Tariq issued a statement on leaving the project, thanking Marvel and writing: "It's been an honor working with the wonderful folks at Marvel. We were able to put together a killer cast and crew. Eager to see where the next director takes the film." Tariq will remain attached to the project as an executive producer.

Despite these recent headlines, ironically, at this point, much more is now known about Wesley Snipes' planned "Blade-killer" movie, which is set "in the world of shape-shifters and a little bit of time travel," than how Blade itself will be getting rebooted. The original Blade, a 1998 superhero-horror film, arguably gave Snipes the greatest commercial success of his career, so the idea of competing Blades trying to potentially outdo one another is of course incredibly exciting--everybody wins there, in the end.