Blade writer “baffled” by Mahershala Ali’s MCU movie in development hell

Mahershala Ali was announced as theMCU’s Bladeover five years ago, and his movie isn’t any closer to getting made. In David S. Goyer’s eyes, that’s “baffling.”

Spider-Manand X-Men may be credited with igniting the Marvel movie boom in the 2000s, butBladedeserves credit. Wesley Snipes’ trilogy grossed nearly $420 million worldwide, and he was one of the most popular appearances in Deadpool & Wolverine.

Mahershala Ali stylized as Blade in concept art

Alas, the studio has yet to figure out how to incorporate a new Daywalker into the MCU, beyond a voice cameo in the post-credits scene of Eternals.

With Phase Six coming to an end withAvengers: Secret Wars, it looks like Blade will be a Phase Seven hero (hopefully), and the original film’s writer can’t understand why it’s taking so long.

David S Goyer and Mahershala Ali in Alita

David S. Goyer addresses if he’d return to Blade

Speaking to Josh Horowitz for hisHappy Sad Confused podcast, Goyer (who wrote the first two Blade movies and also directed Trinity) said he was confused about Marvel’s struggles with the project.

“In my mind, I think Blade is a relatively simple story. It’s not complicated,” he said.

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“When you embark on a movie like this, you have to distill down what is the promise of the movie. The promise of a new Blade is that it should have ass-kicking, it should be pretty scary, might be R-rated, and it should not be complicated. It should be a simple story.

“It’s been so hard… I have no idea. I’m baffled, I’ve sat on the sidelines and Mahershala Ali is an amazing actor.”

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The question is, would Goyer consider returning to the character? “I go back and forth [on it],” he told Horowitz.

“All the time on social media I see, ‘They should have Goyer do the new Blade.’ Part of me thinks it would be fun, but part of me thinks, ‘I did – so far – the definitive Blade, and it’s a mistake.”

Goyer also added another interesting tidbit: Christopher Nolan advised him not to work on Ben Affleck’s Batman because he’d written The Dark Knight trilogy, so it would have been “confusing.”

In the same interview,Goyer (who wrote Man of Steel) also gave his early verdict on James Gunn’s Superman.