Eternals Producer Nate Moore Teases Blade Crossover After Credits Scene

Eternals offered up two major cameos in its pair of credits scenes. Spoilers follow! The first credits sequence saw a trio of Eternals on their ship getting a surprise visit from Eros, the brother of Thanos also known as Starfox, played by Harry Styles. In the second and final credits scene, Kit Harington’s Dane Whitman wrestled with picking up the Ebony Blade and accepting his fate as the Black Knight. This sequence included another cameo, in the form of Mahershala Ali’s voice as Blade which marked the character’s first appearance in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Judging by the sound of it from producer Nate Moore on the Phase Zero podcast, it seems Marvel has fun plans for the Black Knight and Blade together.

“[Blade] was [part of the scene] for reasons hopefully that would become apparent as you see more things, but [Mahershal Ali] wasn’t there on the day,” Moore explained. “And we talked about two versions of that, one where we would cut to him and one where we wouldn’t. ‘How textual do you want it to be?’ And again, it was more just for the fun of it, to tease it a little bit, to hear the voice and not see the man. He was game to do it. Because the Ebony Blade, the characteristics of the Ebony Blade are not dissimilar to some degree to vampirism and we think that’s an interesting kind of thing to play with. So, we kind of knew that was on the table.”

For those who may be unfamiliar with Harington’s character Dane Whiteman, he is powered by the Ebony Blade in comics. It is essentially a family heirloom and powerful weapon which can cut through just about anything. However, if it is used too often, it will begin to corrupt its beholder. A simplified comparison would be the Ring in the Lord of the Rings saga. Dane, as Black Knight, has been a member of the Avengers in comics.

The creative team seems to have had a bit of back and forth about the decision to either show Ali’s Blade or merely feature his voice. “It was a choice and I’m not sure, I think if you polled people, we’d probably get 50% who said, ‘Man, we would love to see Blade standing in the corner of that room,’ and 50% who thought it’d be cool just to hear the voice. And it was something we talked about, but again for us, it’s just like, ‘Ooh, what will give you more goosebumps?’ is our goal.” The Blade movie will begin production in the summer of 2022. There is no confirmation of Harington being a part of the film, yet. 

The full interview with Nate Moore is available on Comicbook.com’s MCU podcast Phase Zero. It is from Episode 44.

Are you looking forward to seeing Blade in the MCU? Share your thoughts in the comment section or send them my way on http://instagram.com/brandondavisbdInstagram! Eternals is now playing in theaters.