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When people think of the comic book movies that kicked off the boom we are experiencing right now, many people would think of the original X-Men or the first Spider-Man movie that came out by director Sam Raimi. However, a third movie is part of the 1-2-3 punch that rarely gets the credit it deserves, which is the original Blade. It was released just a mere fourteen months after the release of Batman & Robin, which everyone declared was going to be the end of comic book movies. It was unapologetically R-rated and successful enough to spawn two more films. It absolutely paved the way for comic book movies, not just R-rated comic book movies, and should be given just as much credit as X-Men and Spider-Man. During San Diego Comic-Con in 2019, Marvel surprised everyone by bringing out the absolutely fantastic Mahershala Ali and revealed that he would be playing a new version of the character for the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Since then, the movie has gained a writer a director, and last November, we got the casting addition of Delroy Lindo. It sounds like things might be moving along for a production start date because the cast has reportedly gained another member. According to Deadline, Aaron Pierre has joined the cast in an unknown role. Marvel, at the time of writing, has no comment.
Since this is the second casting announcement we have gotten since November, and the latest rumor says that production is set to start this summer. We don’t have a release date yet, but with a mid-2022 production start and looking at the current slate, perhaps early 2024 would be a decent guess. Right now, there are already three Marvel movies dated for 2023 [The Marvels on February 17th, Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 on May 5th, and Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania on July 28th], and it doesn’t look like they want a repeat of 2022 where they have four movies in one year. That is a lot. We’ll have to see as the summer gets closer and more information about Blade comes to light.
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