MCU boss finally explains why Blade is taking so long

Marvel Studios boss Kevin Feige has just provided a much needed update on the Blade movie, including why it’s taking so long to release.

Blade was originally announced back in 2019 with Moonlight and Green Book actor Mahershala Ali taking up the titular role, but progress on the project has been pretty quiet since then.

Over the years, it’s been the subject of several rewrites, passed along through various writers and directors, and it still doesn’t have a release date.

Now, Marvel Studios boss Kevin Feige has set the record straight regarding the status of the project, and where it might be headed in the future [via Comic Book Movie].

“We didn’t want to simply just put a leather outfit on [Ali] and have him start killing vampires,” Feige shared. “It had to be unique and it fell right into the time when we started pulling back and saying 'only accept insanely great' and it wasn’t insanely great at the time.

“And we didn’t feel like, as we often do, you can start and have a good script and make it a great script through production," he added.

"We didn’t feel confident that we could do that on ‘Blade’ and didn’t want to do that to Mahershala and do want to do that to us.”

The original plan for Blade was for it to be a period piece, which would then eventually link up with the main Marvel Cinematic Universe either by the end or in a future sequel.

“There were three or four [scripts], two that were period two that are not,” Feige said. “We’ve landed on modern day and that’s what we’re focusing on.”

Considering the obvious connections to Ryan Coogler’s recent hit film Sinners, however, it’s probably for the best to have abandoned that idea.

Despite these comments, we still don’t have an estimated production date for Blade.

It appears that we probably won’t hear much more about it for a while, at least until the MCU is ready to wrap up its Multiverse Saga with Avengers: Secret Wars.