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Marvel Studios has finally delivered an update on the long-awaited Blade film. Before Deadpool & Wolverine (2024), Blade was Marvel's most successful R-Rated film. The 1998 feature was directed by Stephen Norrington and starred Wesley Snipes as Blade, a vampire hunter with superhuman abilities. With a domestic opening of $17 million and a worldwide intake of $131 million (via Box Office Mojo), Blade became a huge hit, spawning a franchise consisting of two sequels, Blade II (2002) and Blade Trinity (2004), which were helmed by Guillermo del Toro and David S. Goyer, respectively. While both sequels pulled in big box office numbers, critics weren't as impressed with the main critiques aimed at their stories, or lack thereof.
The franchise wasn't dead in the ground just yet, as a thirteen-episode TV series, created by Goyer, arrived on Spike TV, and Sticky Fingaz replaced Snipes in the role of Blade, though it only lasted one season. In 2011, Marvel Studios regained the rights to Blade from New Line Cinema, and a future Blade movie reboot, starring Mahershala Ali, was announced at 2019's San Diego Comic Con along with several other projects.
However, while development on the reboot ticked along, the character made appearances in other media, such as Snipes' reprisal as an alternative-dimension Blade in Deadpool & Wolverine, and a version of Blade known as Blade Knight (voiced by Todd Williams) appeared in Season 1 of Marvel Zombies (2025). As for when Ali will debut in the role, Marvel boss Kevin Feige has given a huge (and disappointing) update.
In an interview with Joshua Horowitz for Happy, Sad, Confused, Feige was asked about how the upcoming Blade project was doing, to which he asked if they should get into a "therapy session" before answering. When Horowitz said that "everyone wants it," including Mahershala, Feige responded: "I'm feeling very excited that we got Wesley back for a time in Deadpool and Wolverine, and like a gigantic loser and failure that we didn't get off the ground with Mahershala."
The lack of enthusiasm from Feige is quite telling this time around, and it seems the project is essentially dead at the moment. It's a stark contrast from last year, when he had confirmed that, despite production delays, the Blade rebootfilm was still in the works, revealing to Variety that "Mahershala is still attached."
He had also mentioned that the delay was due to Marvel's "over-expansion," adding: "We had spent 12 years working on the Infinity Saga, saying, 'That’s never going to happen to us.' We always had more characters that people were asking about than we could possibly make, because we weren’t going to make a movie a month — that's crazy. Suddenly, there’s a mandate to make more, and we go, 'Well, we do have more'… But maybe that's what we fell into."
While the Blade reboot remains without an official release date and director, Marvel's latest event film, Avengers Doomsday, is set to release on Dec. 18, 2026. A new trailer for the crossover event showsIron Man star Robert Downey Jr. wrecking havoc in his return to the Marvel Cinematic Universe, only this time as Doctor Doom.
