Blade: Albert Hughes Shares Why He Passed On MCU Movie

Albert Hughes revealed why he passed on Marvel Studios’ Blade during a recent podcast appearance. The Continental director spoke to Josh Horowitz about the Blade movie on Happy, Sad, Confused. When discussing the project, he said that the studio mandates and requests might have overwhelmed his vision for Blade. Basically, signing up for a Marvel project essentially gives you a lot of clout. But, with that notoriety comes some control concessions. Kevin Feige and the producers have certain asks of each project and the creatives in charge have to work together to achieve that vision along with their own hopes and desires for individual heroes. Check out what Hughes had to say below!

The director began, “I’ve been in talks with the obvious studio about superhero movies a couple of times, but I always felt uncomfortable because I knew it was a system. And they’re very nice, and I went through a long process. In fact, I broke down all their movies and put them in a spreadsheet and broke down the box office, watching the title scores, where the VFX ranks, I had to do a deep dive on them.”

“And I got, halfway, not very close, halfway through the process, and I go, ‘No, I would implode from the kind of controlled nature of that world and not being able to do what I do.’ And I don’t understand why a real filmmaker would want to be in that system,” he added. “I understand why up-and-comers would, which they do a good job of. finding people at the right time. But I think I would implode.”

The Marvels Director Nia DaCosta Reflects On The Marvel Experience

The Marvels drops in just a few short days and Nia DaCosta is behind the camera for that Marvel Studios movie. She talked to Vanity Fair about some of the same concerns that Hughes shared. A lot of film fans believe that the individual directors have little to no input on the final product when it comes to the MCU. DaCosta argues that this isn’t the case. But, she also had to acknowledge that producers like Kevin Feige are going to have requests that necessitate you to really be flexible when making movies of this size and scope. 

The studio encouraged her to talk to other Marvel directors about their experience. Black Panther filmmaker Ryan Coogler simply told her to be herself, and she had a fun response to that. “I said, ‘Ryan, what are you talking about?’” DaCosta said. He would explain, “You can’t do anything but be yourself, so bring that to the table. They can choose to take some and leave some, but that’s what your job is.”

“It is a Kevin Feige production, it’s his movie,” DaCosta continued. “So I think you live in that reality, but I tried to go in with the knowledge that some of you is going to take a back seat.”

What’s Going On With Blade?

Well, the movie is still in development. Blade recently changed writers and directors after it became clear that Marvel Studios wanted something different with their approach. Now, Yann Demange will be in charge of the vampire hunter’s big solo movie. MCU fans will remember we’ve already heard Mahershala Ali’s Blade back in Eternals. Producer Nate Moore walked ComicBook.com’s Phase Zero through the story of how that happened last year.

“[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,” Eternals producer Nate Moore told our panel. “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.”

Do you agree with the director about Marvel movies? Let us know in the comments!