MCU's Blade Movie Gets Delayed... Again

Mahershala Ali’s Blade is, unfortunately, getting delayed again. This time, it’s not because of the issue with the writer and director but the ongoing writer’s strike. The MCU will be going through some rough roads ahead.

Fans of the Marvel and the Blade franchise have been waiting for the return of the Daywalker on screen. The last film was released in 2004, which was a flop, but it still managed to release a TV series which was connected to the film. When Kevin Feige announced Blade coming to the MCU with Mahershala Ali taking the role, the crowd went wild.

While the announcement was met with enthusiasm, the development of the film had a lot of trouble. The film was originally set to be directed by Bassam Tariq and written by Stacy Osei-Kuffour. It was initially set to be released in 2023. But in Sept 2022, Tariq left the project. And in Oct, Osei-Kuffor’s script was reported to be scrapped.

Marvel’s Blade Delayed By The Writers’ Strike

Of course, those events derailed the production. Fortunately, they did find a new director with Yann Demange and writer Michael Starrbury. They also recently added writer Nic Pizzolatto just weeks ago. Filming was set to start this summer, and the film moved its release date to 2024.

Unfortunately, the Writers Guild of America (WGA) strike happened.

A report from The Hollywood Reporter tells us that MCU’s Blade has again been delayed because of the ongoing writers’ strike. The production will only continue once the strike is over. Unfortunately, that can take months. We’ve reported before that the shortest strike happened back in 2007, which lasted 100 days, the longest so far is back in 1988, which lasted for 155 days.

So, the delay is no laughing matter. Even with a finished script, the production usually needs an onset writer to be able to make changes while filming.

This happened before in Iron Man, which was filmed in 2007. While Iron Man was not directly affected by the strike itself, it did leave them with an unfinished script, forcing director Jon Favreau and Robert Downey Jr to improvise their dialogue. While this went surprisingly well for Iron Man, which was Marvel’s first film, Marvel can’t expect that lighting in the bottle can work again in other projects.

Marvel felt like it has been stumbling along the way for the past few years. After the success of Avengers: Endgame, their production has multiplied, but at the same time, the quality seemed to have suffered. With the recent failures of films like Eternals and Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, it seems that each mistake Marvel makes is being watched by the masses.

The writers’ strike will affect a lot of Marvel productions, not only Blade.

Blade Is Not The Only MCU Project Affected By The Strike

Credit: Marvel Studios

Captain America: New World Order is already filming, Deadpool 3 and Thunderbolts are set to film soon. Marvel’s own TV shows Agatha: Coven of Chaos and Wonder Man are also filming now. So far, we haven’t heard any delays from them, but in any case, there won’t be any writers to help. In other words, they could get delayed.

Ryan Reynolds, who is the star of Deadpool 3, is also a writer. He’s very much involved in Deadpool, and he has nine writing credits related to the character. While the actor can film scenes, he can’t work on improving anything on the film’s story while the strike is ongoing.

It is possible for certain projects to be prepped in advance, as was the case with Amazon Prime’s The Lord of the Rings: Rings of Power Season 2. The showrunners had provided instructions to the filming crew on what needed to be overseen before they joined the strike, allowing for production to continue despite the impending work stoppage.

All we can hope right now is that the WGA does get a proper deal soon with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP) so that production can start for all affected projects.

What do you think of Blade getting delayed… again? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below.

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