Marvel’s ‘Blade’ Begins Production Next Month
It’s already been almost three full years since Marvel announced that Mahershala Ali would be teaming up with the company to make a new version of Blade, the Wesley Snipes-led superhero vampire hunter whose trilogy of movies in the late ’90s and early 2000s helped pave the way for the modern comic-book movie boom. The company is typically as tight-lipped about its activities as the CIA, but they revealed the existence of that project early, even though at that time the movie didn’t have — and still doesn’t have! — an official release date.
While we’re still waiting where Blade fits on the Marvel release calendar, it looks like three years later, the movie is ready to begin production. On Production List, the film as listed with a start date of July 4, 2022 in Atlanta (where many Marvel films are shot at the local Pinewood Studios) and New Orleans. Bassam Tariq will direct the movie, and here is what the site lists as its plot synopsis:
He is known to be a vampire hunter— half-mortal, half-immortal— who tries to rid the world of vampires as a way of avenging his mother, who was killed by a vampire as she gave birth to him.
This will be the first Blade movie since 2004’s disastrous Blade: Trinity, which tanked at the box office and killed Sony’s version of the franchise. Little else is known about the film beyond Ali and Tariq’s involvement; no additional casting or a story have been announced. Ali made his first (very brief) appearance as Blade, or at least his voice did, in the post-credits scene from Eternals.
Marvel has yet to announce an official release date for Blade.