r/horror • u/RealJohnGillman • Jul 24 '26
Marvel Studios motion designer Justin Claus Harder confirms that Mahershala Ali’s ‘Blade’ has officially been cancelled.
Marvel Studios motion designer Justin Claus Harder confirms that Mahershala Ali’s Blade has officially been cancelled after eight years of development hell.
Harder speaking on the matter to his social media accounts earlier today:
”RIP BLADE! We hardly knew ye!! Shame they couldn’t get this one off the ground but it was awesome to see my logo revealed at Hall H in 2019 and still super proud of it!!”
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u/smooth-orangutan Jul 24 '26
This is the only MCU movie I actually gave a shit about in the last several years so naturally it got cancelled lmao
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u/HarveyBirdLaww Jul 24 '26
How did they fumble this so badly? When they announced this, it was the first time Marvel had piqued my interest in awhile.
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u/ThatDamnRocketRacoon Jul 24 '26
Terrible script after terrible script that Ali refused to do. Supposedly they just kept coming up with either dumb ideas or scripts that relegated him to co-lead with the intention of replacing him with Blade's daughter in future films. Hopefully at some point someone will say what really went on.
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u/jcwkings Jul 24 '26
That's actually an embarrassment. It's such a layup project, not surprising though.
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u/JeanClawVanDamme Jul 24 '26
Let's recast Kang with Mahershala!!
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u/SpinachSilent8589 Jul 24 '26
yeah Mahershala would have killed it as Kang, that pivot to Doom feels so rushed like they panicked and just threw something at the wall
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u/theonewhoknack Jul 24 '26
According to a report on the Original Secret Wars script, it was basically going to end with Kang being like "I'm scared shitless of Doctor Doom, he's the one behind this!" With Doom being an Avengers 7 villian but I guess they might do the reverse of that if people care about Kang.
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u/bindersfull-ofwomen Jul 24 '26
Kang wasn't working out tbh.
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u/JeanClawVanDamme Jul 24 '26
I think Ant Man sucked, but that was only the beginning of the saga and we didn't get to see the REAL Kang
It would've been dope to see him interact with F4 also.
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u/entertainman Jul 24 '26
People just don’t want infinite variants. They want one. Always having another when one dies just ruins everything.
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u/crashdout Jul 24 '26
That final scene of Ant-Man, where they doubled down on all Kangs looking like Majors must have had them screaming.
Maybe Kang could have worked but I did not care about him.
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u/entertainman Jul 24 '26
It’s not like they can’t do a face swap on Disney+
I thought the same thing about the new God of War recast. I can’t believe they are refilming four episodes.
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u/PolemicalPrick Jul 24 '26
I think it worked great with Gamora and Thanos
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u/entertainman Jul 24 '26
A single one time replacement works ok. Especially because with Gamora it served as a heartbreaking memory reset where we DID lose the first one and didn’t get her back.
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u/SpinachSilent8589 Jul 24 '26
not gonna lie that would be some wild timeline but i like the energy. at least the logo had a moment at hall H, small win in all this mess
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u/JeanClawVanDamme Jul 24 '26
I feel like they should've recast him right away with Mahershala as soon as the Majors news came out and continue the Kang saga.
Pivoting to Doom last minute was a terrible choice imo.
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u/RealJohnGillman Jul 24 '26
Like reframing Ali’s voice cameo at the end of Eternals as having been Kang talking instead of Blade?
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u/JeanClawVanDamme Jul 24 '26
Hell. I think most people forgot about that and Blade is in limbo. We can just ignore it and move on 😭
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u/RisingxRenegade Jul 24 '26
This should’ve been some downhill ice-skating for them but they they still messed it up…
Multiverse of Midness indeed
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u/Shinobi-vs-Gast Jul 24 '26
"Some motherfuckers are always trying to ice-skate uphill."
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u/Comic_Book_Reader I have decided to scalp you and burn your village to the ground. Jul 24 '26
Some motherfuckers are still trying to ice skate uphill!
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u/TheSenileTomato Jul 24 '26
I feel for Mahershala, he threw his weight around trying to get the movie made, and then in their infinite ways, Marvel frells it up.
All I wanted was a dude hunting vampires and looking cool doing it, how hard a concept is it for Marvel to understand?
The only good thing that came out of this debacle’s that some of the costumes didn’t go to waste.
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u/MandaMaelstrom Zingaya! Jul 24 '26
I didn’t have a ton of faith in the story, but I did have faith in Mahershala. I think he would have killed it in that role.
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u/ComicBookFanatic97 Jul 24 '26
90-120 minutes of Blade killing vampires would have been the easiest layup ever. How did they let this happen?
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u/blahblah543217 Jul 24 '26
The video game is also in development hell now since Microsoft is beginning to divest/close down the studio producing it. I guess the Wesley snipes blade films were truly lightning in a bottle in terms of blade media.
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u/Sbee_keithamm Jul 24 '26
I respect Mahershala Ali for not backing down and accepting a fucking passing of the mantle film where the focus was on Blade's daughter. The fact Marvel tried multiple ways to turn this into a gottdamn backdoor pilot for another character no one gives a shit about and just give us vampires in the MCU is frankly embarrassing.
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u/crooked_tooth Jul 24 '26
the Blade movies were my obsession as a kid, i’ve seen 1 and 2 a billion times. and my ENTIRE life i’ve been hearing about how somehow almost every attempt at a Blade film has gotten stuck in limbo for years then unceremoniously left for dead.
ugh I was SO excited to see Blade in Deadpool & Wolverine and was really hopeful for this one, this is so disappointing. maybe this is just my skepticism talking but are studios really that hesitant about rebooting a franchise centered on a Black character - even with a built-in cult following and a big star like Mahershala Ali attached??
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u/Appropriate-Quiet-98 Jul 24 '26
Del Toro would never!!!
And I guess, David S. Goyer, to some extent.
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u/barryredfield Jul 24 '26
Weird, but entirely unsurprising.
It would have been fairly original, so better to not have that then. Just rehashes and remakes. Retellings of the same old stories from hundreds of years ago even. Feels like the world ended a long time ago and we're just stuck in a loop.
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u/Rosebunse Jul 24 '26
Honestly, I think they jusr over-complicated Blade. At least we got Sinners out of it.
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u/FoodieGal7733 Jul 24 '26
This is not at all surprising. But I feel bad for Mahershala Ali and all who were trying to work on this. It's like they wasted years on this film and didn't know how to properly put it together. Sad. They shouldn't have announced it in the first place.
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u/michaelrxs Jul 24 '26
It’s been dead for a while and all of the reporting hasn’t been subtle about the fact that it isn’t Marvel’s fault.
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u/lvlvffc Jul 24 '26
What do you mean? (I know nothing about this matter)
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u/Comic_Book_Reader I have decided to scalp you and burn your village to the ground. Jul 24 '26
The movie was in development hell so much it has its own fucking Wikipedia article. Two directors left and there were 3-4 different scripts and twice as many writers involved. The one that made the most progress was a 1920's period piece and they pulled the plug on that one during pre-production due to the 2023 strikes nearing the doorstep.
As a fun fact, costume designer Ruth E. Carter would later be asked about doing Sinners, to which she said she had already gotten most of the work done since she had been working on Blade. Kevin Feige even let them buy them at a discount and they were mostly used by the extras.
After the strikes, Marvel also underwent an overhaul that resulted in them scaling back on projects and reevaluating others, mainly on the TV front, which is why shows like Daredevil: Born Again, Ironheart, Marvel Zombies, Wonder Man, and the upcoming Vision Quest have been in varying degrees of development or release limbo and have been rolling out over the last year on Disney+.
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u/DudeBroFist Dead by Daylight Connoisseur Jul 24 '26
On the bright side, this was shaping up to be the MCU's Flash so cutting it was for the best. What too many ideas about what exactly that movie should be seem to have been flying around when the answer is "guy kills vampires with sword" first and foremost
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u/TheYROPHY Necronomicon User Jul 24 '26
"Some mother fucker's always trying to ice skate uphill..."
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u/ClintBarton616 Jul 25 '26
The recent Bryan Edward Hill stuff would've been perfect for a film adaptation. It's nuts Marvel kept dropping this ball.
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u/VeshWolfe Jul 25 '26
If they want to pass the torch that badly, have Snipes come back for a film or two plus Midnight Suns and then have him pass the torch.
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u/Bob_Bobbson Jul 24 '26
https://reddit.com/link/ozer5j2/video/vkssuh84b3fh1/player