This article deals with RUMORS and SPOILERS, so beware!
A reboot of the Blade film franchise is gearing up at Marvel Studios, and the folks at Murphy’s Multiverse say they’ve gotten their hands on character descriptions that are being used as part of the casting process. The characters they’ve heard about are:
“Abid” is described as a burly, South Asian character who has taken a vow of silence after a turbulent life.
“Huntley”, described as a man, 40-60,
“Faiza”, a French-speaking North African female between 20 and 40
On the Murphy’s Multiverse website, they’re speculating that these characters are actually Blade’s fellow vampire hunters, introduced in the pages of Tomb of Dracula. They suspect that “Abid” is Taj Nital, “Huntley” is Quincy Harker, and “Faiza” is Rachel van Helsing:
Taj was indeed a burly, South Asian character who was first introduced in Tomb of Dracula #3, who did not speak; however, in the comics, he didn’t speak because he had his throat ripped out by vampires, so a slight change there. Taj, along with Rachel van Helsing, the granddaughter of great vampire hunter Abraham van Helsing, worked with Quincy Harker to hunt down the world’s oldest vampire threat, Dracula. Harker, the son of Jonathan and Mina Harker from Bram Stoker’s Dracula, eventually worked with Frank Drake, a descendant of Dracula, and Blade to take on the vampire nation.
If Taj Nital, Quincy Harker, and Rachel van Helsing are indeed part of the story, it sounds like the new Blade movie could be building up to a confrontation with Dracula.
Blade himself is being played by Mahershala Ali, who made his debut as the character in an Eternals post-credits scene (although we only heard his voice there). Delroy Lindo is also in the cast, but we don’t know who he’s playing.
The Blade movie is set to be directed by Bassam Tariq (Mogul Mowgli) from a screenplay by Stacy Osei-Kuffour, who previously worked on the Watchmen TV series. Filming is expected to begin this summer.