The Marvel Cinematic Universe is not really in a risk-taking mood right now. Audience interest has precipitously dropped ever since the climax that was Avengers: Endgame, with only the odd Spider-Man: No Way Home and Deadpool & Wolverine proving to be megahits in a sea of underperforming movies like Thunderbolts* and Black Widow. Not to mention the outright flops like The Marvels and Eternals. Speaking of Eternals, it really is becoming clear that its button scene with Blade’s voice is the closest we’re ever actually going to get to a Mahershala Ali fronted MCU Blade movie.
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According to a piece from Variety, a Blade movie is not currently high on the list of priorities over at Marvel Studios. Instead, their primary focus is on Spider-Man: Brand New Day, the next two Avengers movies, and rebooting the X-Men.
It’s been almost a year since Blade was removed from the MCU release schedule altogether (it was set to be a 2025 release prior to that point). Were the project to have any sort of forward momentum behind it, one would think that, since that move in October 2024, there would be some sort of indication that there was behind-the-scenes work going on.
But this statement of priorities instead seems to confirm that Kevin Feige and company are content to allow Blade to fall by the wayside. As mentioned, we’ve never even seen Ali’s Blade, we’ve just heard him. And the one project we’ve heard him in was and remains one of the MCU’s more disliked theatrical entries.
Perhaps it’s not such a bad thing. While Ali is a truly fantastic actor and would undoubtedly make his mark on the role, the MCU itself has cheekily acknowledged that, at the end of the day, it’s a part that belongs to Wesley Snipes. If fans have been clamoring for any aspect of the Blade reboot, it was Ali’s presence, and they’ll be able to see him in all the other movies and TV series he makes in the future. The man will never be short of projects to work on.
While The Fantastic Four: First Steps‘ global opening of $241 million has been mostly deemed a solid win for the larger universe, it’s still indicative of the fact that MCU movies are not the events they were in, say, Phase 2 or Phase 3. We’re officially in Phase 6 now, and it seems wise on Marvel’s part to focus on projects that seem like surer bets.
Spider-Man: Brand New Day has the audience’s love for Tom Holland’s take on Peter Parker on its side. Even if it’s of a smaller scale than Spider-Man: No Way Home (which seems almost certain), it will make money. And, given the return of Robert Downey Jr., Avengers: Doomsday is going to be a megahit.
But Blade? Even in the MCU’s heyday it would have been a stretch to imagine the movie could rank with the franchise’s larger IPs. If they can keep the budget at around $60 million, there would be hope for Blade to be profitable. But that price tag is hard to imagine for an MCU film, now or ever. It also seems like a Disney+ series is a pipe dream as, quite notoriously, the MCU cranking out those series is what primarily led to the currently present audience fatigue to begin with. It’s sad we won’t get to see Ali join the MCU, but any other franchise (e.g. his recent scene-stealing work in Jurassic World Rebirth) would be lucky to have him.
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