Mahershala Ali: Marvel’s Blade was headed for television before he signed on

Last Updated on July 30, 2021

Fifteen months have passed since Marvel made the out-of-nowhere announcement that we're going to be getting a new BLADE movie starring Mahershala Ali as the title character. Given that there was no mention of a potential release date when that announcement was made, even though several Marvel films already had dates scheduled, it was clear that the project was in a very early stage of development at that point – and it doesn't sound like it has made a lot of progress since. Just last week, The Hollywood Reporter mentioned that the project still doesn't have a writer.

Current projects that studios are hoping to populate with Black behind-the-camera talent include Marvel's Blade movie starring Mahershala Ali, which is looking for writers

While BLADE waits for a screenplay, Ali sat down for an interview on the podcast "The Tight Rope" and talked about how he got involved with the film, revealing that Marvel was thinking of sending Blade back to television before he took the job.

I did this Marvel show for Netflix called Luke Cage, right? So, in doing that show, the day it premiered I had turned to my agent and I had said, 'What are they doing with Blade?' Because I kept hearing that they were trying to find a way to remake it and put it back together, and it was exciting for me to get to be in that Marvel space in TV, but for me, my goal had always been film. So, there was this long process of them speaking about, at least in the television division, really wanted to make it a TV show again, but not necessarily, trying to acquire the rights still, and some thing's kinda going on, so it took a couple of years…"

The first attempt at a Blade show happened back in 2006, when twelve episodes ran on Spike. 

It makes sense that Marvel was considering sending Blade to TV, especially since the company is now putting a lot of focus on shows they're developing for the Disney+ streaming service. I never expected to see Blade in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, it seems a bit awkward to drop a vampire slayer in among the other MCU characters, but he's going to be part of it one of these days.