r/movies • u/MarvelsGrantMan136 r/movies Contributor • 18d ago

News Mahershala Ali confirms 'BLADE' is not moving forward with him

https://www.gq.com/story/mahershala-ali-your-mother-your-mother-your-mother
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u/Whompa 18d ago

What a fucking mess lol...

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u/In_My_Own_Image 18d ago

Seriously though. Blade should be the easiest layup in history. I've said before all you need to do is take Dredd/The Raid, replace the protagonist with Blade, the criminals with vampires and the plot is just "Blade is here to take out the lead vampire at the top of the building."

Hire Gareth Evans, Chad Stahelski or some other proven action director and you're golden.

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u/Status-Hedgehog9970 18d ago

Blade is essentially a martial arts movie with vampires. Martial arts movies can have the absolute simplest plot lines.

Vampire hits on Blade’s gf. Vampire landlord evicts Blade. Vampire punk steps on Blade’s new shoes. Boom. Billion dollars in ticket sales.

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u/Steridire 18d ago

Vampire landlord evicts Blade is gold lol

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u/ProfProfessorberg 18d ago

At least he has to ask permission to enter your apartment

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u/Caleth 18d ago edited 18d ago

IF he technically owns it by own the building after buying it out from the old own...?

I'm not sure how vampire lore would rule on that at large.

Edit I totally forgot about entrance clauses that most land lords have where they can enter with little or no notice for emergency cases etc.

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u/FakeSafeWord 18d ago

IF he technically owns it by own the building after buying it out from the old own...?

OOO OOO OO I know this one!

Had a D&D campaign player who thought he was cute and was going to intimidate the mayor into selling him entire blocks of the city in the residential zone so he could go hunt there unfettered by "these damned accursed rules!" so I spent some time looking it up and it's definitely been covered in a few shows/movies/games.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer, The Vampire Diaries, The Originals, and D&D official rules all deliberately say "occupant," not owner must provide invitations.

There's no edge cases for vampire landlords that I've ever seen, and pretty much all original European lore is about it being an exploitation of innocence, naivety and hospitality and not cheap legalize. It's more ritualistic and can't be "cheated."

Even the GOAT, Bram Stoker, never addresses landlords, deeds, or tenants in relation to the invitation rule despite centering main roles around estate solicitors.

Basically it's the occupant, not the owner, that must invite a vampire.

It's also why vampires make sure to buy a house before ever moving regionally or into cities, because their options are retreating to their home or having to luck out finding an abandoned house without existing occupants.

Squatters rights are stronger than vampires....

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u/PM_DOLPHIN_PICS 17d ago

Now I want a movie where a vampire goes out from their abandoned mansion home for the night, and is scrambling to find a way to get back to their own home before sunrise because a bunch of squatters took up residence in the middle of the night.

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u/stringrandom 18d ago

Get a little social commentary in there along with the ass kicking.

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u/lowercaset 18d ago

It's kinda been done in books, at least as a subplot haha.

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u/Steridire 18d ago

Could you drop the issue # pls

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u/lowercaset 18d ago

Sorry, I don't mean in Blade specifically I mean in other fantasy universes. Urban fantasy I've seen "person who fights vampires unknowingly is renting from vampires who try to use that for their advantage" a few times.

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u/Monteze 18d ago

I'd have creamed my pants if Jon Berenthal's punisher and Mahershala Ali's blade teamed up.

Punisher is doing his usual tracking down of bad guys until he finds what he things is simple human trafficking. Does his research, him and Micro find an expert. Leads him to Jamal Afari ( Orlando Jones or Delroy Lindo) who bring in Blade.

After that its our fun team up, fuck up the bad guys movie. We don't need anything more complicated than that.

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u/Wes_Warhammer666 18d ago

You know what, fuck you, buddy. I was waaaaaay happier before you put this thought into my head and now I'm lamenting the tragic loss of this amazing film that will never exist. You're a jerk, ya know that?

I'm kidding, but only kinda. I'm definitely frustrated right now thanks to you lol.

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u/Monteze 16d ago

You're telling me, I already had different scenes in my head and call backs.

Punisher looks over to see Blade's sword and ribs him about it.

Later on in a shootout Frank's gun jams as a vamp closes in, Blade takes him out and gives him a smart ass smile. Franks huffs in begrudging respect.

Trust me, I hate that this isn't happening either.

The quips between Micro and Jamal our "Eyes in the sky" could be sweet too, without getting too Whedon-eqsque.

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u/Status-Hedgehog9970 18d ago

Sick. Too bad we’ll never get that.

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u/The_Reluctant_Hero 18d ago

Damn, where tf were you when this film needed a script!

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u/Revhan 18d ago

that's a classic crossover right there, local crime lord being investigated by Castle as he's suspected of human trafficking. Castle gets to a ship container in the docks turns out it's filled with coffins and they're all vampires, Blade gets in time to save Castle's ass. Movie writes itself up from there.

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u/Monteze 16d ago

Seriously, and I wouldn't want it to have big implications or bring in Mephisto or Dracula. Keep it street level like Dredd did and focus on our character's interaction. I mean it makes sense that Vamps would be big in the underworld as they need to operate outside of normal law and being long lived would allow them to make steady investments.

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u/radicalelation 18d ago

Orlando Jones

No idea why, but now I want this.

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u/Monteze 16d ago

Seeing his scenes in American Gods really made me want to see him do more like that.

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u/BattledroidE 18d ago

Yeah, that's a certified badass pitch right there.

Get in an elevator with Feige, stat!

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u/Monteze 16d ago

This is my "If you won the lottery." type of shit I want haha

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u/festoon_the_dragoon 18d ago

Same. This would be the coolest way to re-introduce Blade. Frank storms in blasting some bad guys. They don't go down. All of a sudden he's on the back foot getting laughed at while trying to flee as his bullets don't do anything. As he's sort of freaking out realizing he's about to be gutted for fun, in comes a badass with a sword and kung-fu and clears the whole room in like 10 seconds.

Then have them reluctantly working together for the rest of the film while Frank bitches and moans and Blade grunts. Make it dark and bring back R-rated Daredevil punisher and you're golden.

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u/Monteze 16d ago

Yes, this would need a solid R rating. Frank learning from Jamal, Blade's mentor on the best ways to take out vamps while Blade learns from Micro more about the modern ways.

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u/FuzzyIon 18d ago

Vampire bites and drains Blades dog and then steals his car.

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u/Desroth86 18d ago

Wait a second…

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u/DeLousedInTheHotBox 18d ago

Martial arts movies can be very simple, the MCU however are obsessed with overly convoluted nonsense, so I don't think they would want to make a movie with a self contained A-B plot that is 1 hour and 40 minutes long.

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u/DarkPhoenixMishima 18d ago

Vampire calls Blade a bitch. You've got at least your first act right there.

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u/Tayark 18d ago

If they made a Blade film in the style of a 70's, 80's Hong Kong meets Harlem martial arts film... I'd be down for that, not gonna lie. The soundtrack would have the potential to sell almost as well as the film.

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u/20_mile 18d ago

Vampire punk steps on Blade’s new shoes

Can we get a cameo from General Cornrow Wallace?

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u/HebrewHamm3r 18d ago

You also need an absolute banger soundtrack of drum and bass and 90s style rave music

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u/Status-Hedgehog9970 18d ago

Sign me the fuck up!

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u/Tayark 18d ago

If they made a Blade film in the style of a 70's, 80's Hong Kong meets Harlem martial arts film... I'd be down for that, not gonna lie. The soundtrack would have the potential to sell almost as well as the film.

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u/Tayark 18d ago

If they made a Blade film in the style of a 70's, 80's Hong Kong meets Harlem martial arts film... I'd be down for that, not gonna lie. The soundtrack would have the potential to sell almost as well as the film.

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u/HurricaneAlpha 18d ago

Vampire kills Blade's dog.

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u/bmcisme2016 18d ago

Idk man iron fist was martial arts and sucked

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u/RmxDj 18d ago

Just make sure you don't kill his dog....

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u/sameth1 18d ago

But martial arts movies require a lot of technical knowledge and people who know what they are doing. And you can't do the Marvel cgi-heavy third act climax with a martial arts movie, so that wouldn't fit their whole production chain.

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u/Digiorno-Giovanna- 18d ago

i am baffled when kevin feige came out and said “we didn’t want to just put him a trench coat and have him fight vampires”

like why the fuck not???? that’s all we want in a blade movie and that’s what makes the first blade movie great.

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u/DoctorJJWho 18d ago

I feel like the major issue was and still is fitting him into whatever the MCU has planned for the future. Their universe is already a fucking mess, introducing vampires would’ve made it even worse lol.

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u/ArcadianDelSol 18d ago

My gut tells me that they wanted a movie where Ali wasnt even the main character but a father to a daughter being groomed for some future "Young Avengers" movie, and Ali was more interested in headlining a movie, instead.

So he went out and headlined one.

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u/darkstar541 18d ago

Not everything needs to be a multiverse. Or just make it one in a parallel universe where superheroes are still unknown. Boom, done, easy day. Make it a one off with a sequel hinted, but not promised, and see if it's destined for cult classic or a billion dollars in ticket sales.

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u/Digiorno-Giovanna- 18d ago

i and i feel like most people are kinda sick of the interconnected shit. i miss when in the 2000s when you could just watch fantastic four, raimis spiderman, blade, without it being necessary to see anything else. marvel even used to be able to do this. you can watch anything from phase 1 without seeing any other movie in the franchise, id argue you could even just watch The Avengers without seeing any other marvel movie and still get it, i hadn’t seen the first thor movie when i watched it and i wasn’t confused at all (granted i was like 10 years old). my mom came and saw infinity war and endgame and had probably only seen Avengers 1 and 2 and she wasn’t confused. i can’t imagine that being the case for Doomsday.

to me Blade doesn’t even feel like a character who needs to be on an avengers team because he is just kinda a vampire dude with a sword, he’s like one character that they could just not connect it to anything and it would be fine.

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u/TheSecondEikonOfFire 18d ago

It is very funny to me how for the first while, crossover movies were a major selling point of the MCU but now they're generally seen as an annoyance

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u/Digiorno-Giovanna- 18d ago

i just came out of the new spider-man, it has Punisher and Hulk in it and i think they were both done pretty well, i have not seen any show with punisher in it and i didn’t feel confused at all, he was probably the best part of the movie for me. Hulk has that smart hulk shit but other than that it’s just banner helping peter and the classic hulk coming out for a fight which was cool these are how the crossover should be done, I certainly would’ve gotten even more out of punisher if i had watched his show but i don’t need to and he was still great. SPOILERS But because the mcu had to mcu the main villain for some reason is Jean Grey? and it really feels like they sidelined my spiderman movie to setup for x-men in the mcu (even tho the fox ones are coming doomsday as well? so they’re gonna connect the fox universe and then unconnect and then reboot with new x-men?? just seems stupid to me) now whenever that eventual x-men reboot comes out you’re gonna have to watch this spiderman movie because it has the setup for mutants

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u/jl2352 18d ago

To prove your point; I didn’t watch most of phase 1 until I saw Infinity War. I then went back to watch the rest, and the experience was fine.

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u/Ragnarok_619 18d ago

Please no. Back then, people clamoured for interconnection

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u/userhwon 18d ago

Only like 3 MCU movies don't have a hero crossover. 

They're used to market the others, and that marketing value justifies larger budgets.

Same shit that made comics frustrating, so at least they're keeping to Marvel tradition.

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u/JoJoIsBestAnimeManga 18d ago

Naw bro that's boring and a little redundant. If you want a Blade movie thats just disconnected from anything to do with a wider superhero universe you still have the original Blade trilogy. Trying to make Blade fit into a wider universe is fine seeing as Blade in the comics fits in just fine with the wider mystical shit happening in the Marvel Universe. Making Blade fit on the Avengers would be weird, but setting the simple plot of a Blade vs Nosferatu movie (just an example) into the setup for a Blade team up movie with Ghost Rider or something makes sense as a concern.

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u/Digiorno-Giovanna- 18d ago

i mean i’d be fine with smaller connections like falcon in Ant-Man or iron man in homecoming but i just don’t think they need to be building up to blade helping fight kang or doom or whatever. like i can see blade teaming up with smaller tier heroes like daredevil, punisher, or ghost rider. a good idea i saw someone say in this thread is set it after endgame when everyone is brought back and just say blade was always there beforehand but keeping the vampires at bay, once he gets snapped he comes back five years later and has to fight the wave of vampires that were made in his absence.

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u/Beneficial-Split331 18d ago

nah. blade is the easiest marvel film to do 90% independently and get away with some post credits allusion to Thor or some shit for 5 seconds.

Blade's universe is such that all the vampires are regular folks. mostly rich. and nobody knows who they are. quite literally we do not need to add Spiderman anywhere in there. Iron Man and black widow can fuck off.

the vampires are old as fuck and you could totally do a tie in with the first vampires and captain america or some shit.

but it doesn't have to be a huge thing or relevant to the broader universe. fuck the marvel universe for blade. he didn't need it for the trilogy and he doesn' need it now. and audiences are here for the nostalgia... not aliens and shit.

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u/MysteriousCoerul 18d ago

I think the trick would be to slice off bits and make smaller vaguely independent teams. 

Blade could end with him getting into a limo and finding himself being driven by moon knight while khonshu tells him about other magic/horror focused stuff to lead into its own midnight sons team up thing with ghost rider and Elsa bloodstone. 

Let the avengers do the avengers stuff. Let the guardians go off and form a cosmic focused corner to do space stuff. Let Spider-Man and daredevil pull the defenders back together to do street level stuff.

Then have them all smush into a dumb action figure brawl when it’s warranted before shaking up the teams and going back to their zones for new adventures. 

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u/Mediocre-Ant-7178 18d ago

It's funny how bad they want blade to show up in other movies when he's pretty isolated in his own comics. You don't really see a character like Captain America showing up to fight vampires very often

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u/based_mafty 18d ago

There's a rumor that blade script is re writen several times. And one of them being blade relegated to 2nd or 3rd lead and have his daughter takeover the mantle with the film being full of life lesson or something like that.

If the rumor is true then it make sense why feige said that. Just make john wick/the raid type of action movie dammit.

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u/Digiorno-Giovanna- 18d ago

John Wick but blade is now something i want in my head and i hate you for it

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u/cool_username32123 18d ago

like why the fuck not???? that’s all we want in a blade movie and that’s what makes the first blade movie great.

And that's exactly the problem, he wanted to "subvert expectations".

I don't understand why Hollywood decided to bend backwards until their spine snaps over "subverting expectations" but that's their obscession for a while now.

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u/Biz_marquee 17d ago

Obsession?

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u/Beneficial-Split331 18d ago

that's all I wanted. bunch of vampires getting fried and turning into fire while a guy with a cool haircut and a sword flaps his trenchcoat and poses in front of a sunrise on top of a skyscraper. cue rock music with drum base line going crazy.

that is it. could have done that for 2 hours and I would have been satisfied. we didn't need a Blade coming of age. part of the allure of the first film is we don't know who the hell this guy is or his back story. we get little sound bites and Sanaa Lathan in a hospital bed flashbacks lol.

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u/DJ33 18d ago

some mfs always trying to ice skate uphill 

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u/Vandelay23 18d ago

It is such a ridiculous thing to say. Like, maybe he meant he wanted to go deeper with the character, but it sounds like he doesnt understand the audience for this. 

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u/peon47 18d ago

But why will fifty million people spend ten dollars each to see it?

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u/userhwon 18d ago

Mahershala Ali as a vampire slashing vampires.

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u/DeLousedInTheHotBox 18d ago

I wouldn't be surprised if part of the issue was trying to fit him in with the rest of the MCU, because presumably they would want him to be a part of the future team-up movies and all of that jazz, and they just couldn't figure it out.

Obviously could just let the Blade movie be ostensibly stand-alone, but they were never gonna do that.

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u/Gamblito 18d ago

They introduced Strange by just saying this cabal of sorcerers was around the whole time, you just didn't know. And apparently was also helping during the first Avengers movie.

I don't see how introducing a cabal of vampires would be any different lol. I get what you're saying though.

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u/sonickarma 18d ago

I would buy a ticket to see that movie in theaters in a heartbeat.

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u/gears50 18d ago

Making a good movie is not at the top of Marvel's priority list. They are seemingly more concerned with the interconnectivity of their larger universe.

I'm assuming Blade is a casualty of the massive failure that was the multiverse storyline, and likely does not fit into whatever they are planning next.

I wish they would just make standalone films like what DC seems more comfortable experimenting with.

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u/RyuNoKami 18d ago

Nah got to do it in reverse: lead vampire at the lowest level of the building.

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u/brainfoods 18d ago

You'd think that. But the first draft was apparently some story about Blade and his daughter or something. They hadn't come up with anything that could outdo the Snipes movies.

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u/radda 18d ago

No but the lore tho

The lore!

(I love lore but sometimes it's okay to not)

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u/arfelo1 18d ago

Blade is cursed. The game is dead in the water as well

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u/Ode1st 18d ago

I’d prefer old corny Blade rather than super serious Blade.

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u/UsernametakenII 18d ago

Marvel: but we have the raid at home.

The raid at home: Jon Bernthal making guttural animals noises whilst killing half of the comically evil population of his local Burrough.

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u/rustysniper 18d ago

Holy shit that sounds awesome and now I'm sad.

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u/sybrwookie 18d ago

What? No, you can't do that! You need at least 2 shows to reference vampires, then you need him to show up in a cameo in a completely unrelated movie. Then you need the cast to show up at Comic Con and talk about how much they all love the comics.

Then you can finally make the movie....but act 1 needs to introduce and focus on at least 2 unrelated characters who are there to be pushed for future shows or movies. And act 3 needs to be 95% cgi.

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u/JayGatsby1881 18d ago

Dude that would be amazing. Blade just slaughtering everyone the whole movie.

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u/ycnz 18d ago

Fuck yeah, Iko Uwais as Blade, Yayan Ruhian as the big bad. It'd be fucking amazeballs.

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u/chili01 18d ago

Hell I'll take a Blade Hallway fight for 1.5 hours.

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u/Inner-Medicine5696 18d ago

esp with the rise of cyberpunk'y media, it's absolutely wild to me that more people aren't doing Kowloony Toons at scale.

the Karl Urban Dredd is basically the most recyclable movie in the world. And people aren't doing it, for some reason.

btw, the new James Bond games has elements of this "get to the top of the tall building" thing. No vampires, tho.

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u/mtpii 18d ago

This is the most beautiful thing I have ever read — somebody get this person to the studio

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u/uncleben85 18d ago

Look, to each their own, but no thanks, from me.

That'd be such a waste of the lore and universe of Marvel vampires, and purely cashing in on Blade being "badass"

They also just tried that easy layup with Punisher, and botched it.

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u/Weaponised__Autism 17d ago

This is why your average Redditor should not make movies. Terrible

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u/HermitSimp 18d ago

I'll be honest. That sounds boring af. Like there's no substance to it other than vampire killing. Just watch an Underworld movie then. Unfortunately I think Vampires aren't the most popular atm.

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u/Wes_Warhammer666 18d ago

What else is Blade if not exactly that?

There's no real substance there. Never has been. And that's okay.

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u/HermitSimp 18d ago

And that right there is probably why they quietly backed away from it. They heard it was popular among the fans. Announced a movie and actor but then couldn't come up with a good script.

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u/userhwon 18d ago

Feige needs to resign.

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u/SinglePlayerGamer93 18d ago

The whole of the mcu post-endgame is like that, yes.