This July will mark four years since it was announced at San Diego Comic-Con that Mahershala Ali would lead a Blade reboot for the Marvel Cinematic Universe. We’ve since heard Ali as the character in Eternals, but there’s quite a ways to go until the vampire hunter’s upcoming Marvel movie arrives. However, for those of you who enjoyed the actor’s time on True Detective Season 3, there’s good news, as Blade is reuniting him with the HBO anthology show’s creator.
Nic Pizzolatto, the mastermind behind True Detective (which can be streamed with an HBO Max subscription) has been brought in for writing work on Blade. However, rather than penning an entirely new screenplay, THR shared that Pizzolatto is working off the draft put together by Michael Starrbury of When They See Us fame, and has been doing so “for a few weeks now.” Along with his work on True Detective, he’s written/co-written The Magnificent Seven (the remake, obviously), Galveston and The Guilty, as well as did uncredited work on Deadwood: The Movie.
Following three years after his first Marvel outing as Cornell “Cottonmouth” Stokes in Luke Cage, and just a year after hew voiced Aaron Davis/The Prowler in Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, True Detective Season 3 saw Mahershala Ali playing Detective Wayne Hayes, with his costars including Carmen Ejogo, Stephen Dorff, Scott McNairy and Ray Fisher. Ali earned an Emmy nomination for that performance, and while it isn’t clarified in this report if he had any direct involvement in bringing Pizzolatto aboard for Blade, hopefully these two working together again will produce similar magic.
The news of Nic Pizzolatto joining Blade comes five months after Michael Starrbury was announced to be writing the reboot, along with Yann Demange taking over as the director following Bassam Tariq’s exit in late September 2022. As far as the on-camera talent that will be joining Ali, it was reported a few weeks ago that X and Pearl star Mia Goth had joined the cast that also includes Delroy Lindo and Aaron Pierre. Like his comic book counterpart and Wesley Snipes’ version, Ali’s Blade will be a half-human/half-vampire slayer of the latter bloodsuckers, but specific details about what awaits him in this reboot are being kept under wraps.
As things currently stand, Blade is set to wrap up the MCU’s Phase 5 on September 6, 2024, just two months before Deadpool 3 ushers in Phase 6. Filming is expected to begin in May, so ideally once that happens we’ll learn about other actors appearing in it and maybe even some plot details. Until then, Disney+ subscribers can easily stream most MCU content, but if you’d rather revisit Wesley Snipes’ Blade movies, those can be accessed with an HBO Max subscription.
