At San Diego Comic-Con in 2019, Marvel Studios revealed plans to move forward with a new “Blade” film, announcing two-time Oscar-winner Mahershala Ali (“Moonlight”) as the new lead character. Movement on the picture had been seemingly slow, but the film has been picking up the pace of late. Eventually, the studio hired Bassam Tariq (“Mogul Mowgli”) to direct, and now, The Hollywood Reporter has revealed that veteran character Delroy Lindo (“Malcolm X,” “Get Shorty”) is in final negotiations to take a role in the action-horror superhero flick.
Lindo recently worked with MCU alumni Jonathan Majors and the late Chadwick Boseman in Spike Lee’s Vietnam drama “Da 5 Bloods.” However, what character he will be playing has not been revealed yet. Lindo’s was also a regular on “The Good Fight” and recently turned up in the Netflix archetypal Western “The Harder They Fall.”
The character of Blade, aka, Eric Brooks is born half-human and half-vampire after his pregnant mother is bitten by a vampire, Deacon Frost. Born with none of the weaknesses of vampires, Brooks becomes a vampire hunter using the superhero name Blade. With his mentor Whistler, Brooks tracks and hunts down various sects/members of the Vampire Nation, a global syndicate that has infused themselves without the world of humans that allows them to operate quietly and under the radar.
“Watchmen” series writer Stacy Osei-Kuffour is behind the “Blade”script. Delroy Lindo was once attached to Dominic Fortune in “Marvel’s Most Wanted,” but the Marvel Television show never got picked up to series.
It’s still unclear if Marvel Studios is planning to take cues from the comics, the Wesley Snipes movies, or do their own thing for the Marvel Cinematic Universe and allow it to be accessible to a younger audience. The original trilogy was an R-rated action franchise that focused on gruesome deaths at the hands of Blade’s sword and other various weapons.
“Blade” is also said to begin shooting by the end of the summer and means we’ll be getting plenty of more casting announcements in the near future.