Mahershala Ali was ready to exit Blade over script issues with the budget speculated to be less than $100M

Mahershala Ali was ready to exit #Blade over script issues

#Logan writer Michael Green has been hired to restart the script from scratch

The budget is speculated to be less than $100M.

The MCU reboot of Blade was originally announced back in 2019, and at the time, the fandom went wild to discover that two-time Academy Award-winning actor Mahershala Ali was going to take on the role originally portrayed on the big screen by Wesley Snipes. The Moonlight and Green Book star had some tough shoes to fill, but given Ali’s celebrated career, confidence in what the actor could achieve was absolute.

Unfortunately, since that moment, the project has gone through several changes, mainly due to the actor’s conflicts with the script and many changes to the production team. It seems that this is something not yet fully resolved, and that could affect the already delayed shooting and subsequent release date of the project, which has been modified several times and is currently set for February 14, 2025.

Filming on Blade was supposed to begin in June 2023; however, production was delayed due to the Writers Guild of America (WGA) strike and, now, the Screen Actors Guild-American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (SAG-AFTRA) strike. According to Variety, Marvel is now trying to make the movie with a budget of less than $100 million.

So far, Ali has only had an uncredited voice cameo appearance in the MCU as Blade in the mid-credits scene of 2021’s Eternals.

One person familiar with the production told Variety that, at one point, the script for the upcoming Blade movie “morphed into a narrative led by women and filled with life lessons.” As a result, Ali’s Blade was downgraded to the fourth lead in the movie.

Ali was ready to exit the project before Feige hired Michael Green — who co-wrote 2017’s Logan and 2017’s Blade Runner 2049 — to rewrite the script. At this time, Ali is still attached to the picture. Blade currently has a release date of February 14, 2025.

In February 2021, Stacy Osei-Kuffour was hired to write the script for Blade while Bassam Tariq was hired to direct the movie. Tariq left the project approximately a year later and was replaced by Yann Demange, while Michael Starrbury was brought on to rewrite the script. Nic Pizzolatto then joined the production in April 2023 as another writer before Green was brought in October 2023.