‘How is it so hard?’ Fans are up in arms after ‘Blade’ loses its release date and may be gone for good

No MCU movie has had a rougher ride to cinemas than Blade, because now there might not even be a Blade. It was set to release on November 7, 2025 (after being pushed back from November 3, 2023) but now it has no release date at all. Predator: Badlands has taken its slot.

To say Blade has had a troubled production is a huge understatement. The project was announced back at Comic-Con in 2019 – a reboot of Blade set in the Marvel Cinematic Universe and starring Mahershala Ali as the title character. Fans of the character were delighted, but then the blows just kept coming. Bassim Tariq was set as director, but by September 2022 he’d stepped down. Yann Demange was brought in as a replacement, but in June 2024 he also quit. That’s not even getting into the delays caused by COVID and the SAG-AFTRA strike.

The Marvel Cinematic Universe itself has poked fun at the Blade delays … and offered an alternative. Wesley Snipes, the original Blade, made a surprise appearance in the multiverse blockbuster Deadpool and Wolverine and dropped the meta line, “There’s only one Blade. There’s only ever going to be one Blade.” Since then, people have wondered: Why not just do a movie with Snipes as Blade?

Of course, there’s many reasons why Marvel wouldn’t go for that. And frankly, fans want to see Ali as Blade! He was a big reason why people wanted to go see the film in the first place! But with no word from him or anyone else about what’s happening with the movie, fans have begun asking: What’s the issue? How hard is it to make a film about a vampire hunter? (Don’t forget, there were three previous Blade films with Snipes!) It’s not like there aren’t decades of great comic material to choose from after all.

Fans are disappointed, there’s no doubt about that, and they have every reason to be. Blade had a great premise (you can’t really go wrong with it) and a great cast: Ali, Mia Goth, Delroy Lindo… ah wait, Lindo dropped out too. Everyone was looking forward to seeing what they came up with, and there was even a brief Blade tease at the end of the ill-fated Eternals, with Ali doing a voiceover. The pieces were all in place but Marvel just couldn’t seem to put them together. It feels like only a matter of time before Marvel comes out and announces Blade is dead for good.