Marvel’s Blade Reboot Plans Would Make It Earliest Movie In the MCU Timeline

April 23, 2025, 1:22pm

From the Big Bang that birthed the universe and the six Infinity Stones to the cosmic Celestials creating the Earth, the Marvel Cinematic Universe timeline technically spans billions of years. 2021’s Eternals (which was mostly set in in the present) began in 5,000 B.C., while films like Thor, Black Panther, and Black Panther: Wakanda Forever glimpsed events that happened thousands or millions of years ago: Asgard’s battle with the Frost Giants at Jotunheim. A vibranium meteorite striking the continent of Africa. The birth of the mutant Namor, first of the Talokanil.

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Period pieces Captain America: The First Avenger and Agent Carter both take place in the 1940s, The Fantastic Four: First Steps is set in a retro-futuristic version of the 1960s, and Captain Marvel predates Earth’s mightiest heroes with a story set in the era of Blockbuster Video in the 1990s. But Blade, the Mahershala Ali-fronted reboot of the ageless vampire hunter, was to take place even further back in time: to the 1920s.

“I was prepping Blade for Marvel, and it was a 1920s Blade story,” Ruth E. Carter, the two-time Oscar-winning costume designer of Black Panther and Wakanda Forever, said on the John Campea Show. But when the writers and actors strikes of 2023 put a wooden stake into production on the Marvel Studios movie, Carter found herself “in limbo.”

That’s when she was approached by her Black Panther director Ryan Coogler, who had been prepping his own vampire period piece: Warner Bros.’ Sinners, which is set in 1930s Mississippi and centers on a juke joint operated by twin brothers (both played by Michael B. Jordan) that is besieged by vampires looking to turn their patrons.

“Having done a lot of research for this period piece about a vampire — Blade is a vampire story,” Carter said. “Ryan’s wife, Zinzi, who also was a producer on [Sinners], she gave me a call and said, ‘Ryan has a story he’s going to tell you about … It is a period piece about vampires.’ And I thought, ‘Okay, I have already been living in that space for quite a long time prepping Blade, and Blade‘s not going to happen, so let me hear it.’”

“I couldn’t believe he was not only doing a period piece, but he was doing a vampire film,” she continued. “If I were to guess what his next film after Black Panther [Wakanda Forever] would have been, I don’t know if I would have gone into that space.”

Last year, it was reported that the Blade reboot was to be set in the 1920s with scenes spanning “multiple time periods.” (In the comics, the half-human, half-vampire Eric Brooks was born during London’s Great Depression in 1929.) It was also reported that the version that was moving forward with director Yann Demange would have had Mia Goth (Pearl) in the role of Lilith, an ancient demon-vampire goddess who “wanted the blood of Blade’s daughter.”

The current version of Blade, which has been without a release date since it was pulled from Disney’s release schedule in October, is said to take place in the present-day MCU. Ali, who was announced as Blade back at San Diego Comic-Con in 2019, has so far only played the character in an off-screen cameo in the end credits scene of Eternals.