Mahershala Ali, the Academy Award-winning actor, has been a focal point of rumors centered around the creation of a Blade reboot for a long while now. However, it has finally received an official release date in 2023. The announcement was made at the 2022 San Diego Comic-Con and via Ali’s Instagram post which has sincerely left fans beyond excited.
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The 48-year-old is quickly becoming one of Hollywood’s most diversely skilled actors and has already garnered multiple accolades for appearing in extraordinary films and theatre productions. His appearance in films like The Curious Life of Benjamin Button, Moonlight, The Free State of Jones, The Wronged Man, and the Netflix political drama, The House of Cards has won him severe accolades and appreciation.
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Mahershala Ali Confirms Role as Daywalker in Marvel’s Blade
The first time the industry saw the half-human half-vampire in action was in the Wesley Snipes movie at the turn of the century. His trilogy brought a live-action Blade to the audience at the ripe time when vampires and supernatural hunters were just becoming the new hype in town. Although quickly becoming an underground cult classic, Wesley Snipes’ classic rendition of Blade in the trilogy had been independent of Marvel affiliations and was consequently not marketed as such.
Nearly 20 years later, Marvel Studios has finally picked up the action-horror project after announcing that the movie was in development at the 2019 San Diego Comic-Con. Mahershala Ali will be appearing as the Daywalker half-vampire vampire hunter in the film which has carved out a 2023 release among other Phase Five MCU films and series. Kevin Feige announced that Blade will be taking the last film date in 2023.
What Does Blade’s Appearance Mean For The MCU’s Future?
When Jeremy Slater was given the task of writing Moon Knight, there were characters, he was told, that would be off-limits and Blade was one of those characters. Despite rumors that Mahershala Ali would be teasing his role in the Disney+ series, there were no cameos. Slater later revealed, “I think at the time we were cracking Moon Knight, they were also kind of trying to crack the Blade story and try to figure out what that was. And so I think they wanted to keep them separately.”
Related article: Blade: Behind-the-scenes Meetings With Kevin Feige and Mahershala Ali Revealed By Writers
However, that did not impede Marvel from indeed teasing a chilling teaser in the Eternals post-credit scene with Kit Harrington. In a scene where Harrington’s Dane Whitman reveals himself as the Black Knight, Mahershala Ali voices from off-screen, “You sure you’re ready for that Mr. Whitman?” That not only officially introduces Blade’s entry into the MCU but also squares him off against the Black Knight as his first tribulation. The extent of the two’s enmity is yet to be revealed.
So far, Blade’s introduction into the MCU offers itself up as a standalone story, but speculation about the recent timeline may be adding up to a Midnight Sons story sometime in the future. Since Iron Fist, Morbius, Mr. Knight, and Wong are already settled in, Blade’s entry will surely leave an opening for a saga that might involve a supernatural war against Lilith and her children in the near future.
Directed by Bassam Tariq, Blade has officially set an initial release date for 3 November 2023.
Source: Instagram
