Comic-Con: Marvel Studios’ Blade Will Be in Phase 5 or Later

July 21, 2019

Last night Marvel Studios brought down the house with a full reveal of their Phase 4 slate, before bringing out one last reveal, announcing that 2-time Academy Award-winner Mahershala Ali (Green Book, Moonlight) will take on the iconic role of Blade in the MCU.

Speaking with Collider, Marvel Studios head Kevin Feige confirmed that the full Phase 4 line-up had been revealed, though changes were possible.

“It is the complete Phase Four the way I announced the complete Phase Three five years ago—things can move, things can change as they did if you go back and look at what we talked about five years ago for Phase Three, but we’ve been working on this for quite a while and it’s pretty set. But there are always changes possible.”

Feige confirmed that Blade would not be in Phase 4, but did not reveal just yet if it would encompass Phase 5 or even later, which puts the film at releasing in 2022 at the very earliest.

Blade was created by writer Marv Wolfman and artist Gene Colan as a supporting character in the comic book “The Tomb of Dracula” #10 in July of 1973. Wesley Snipes played the martial artist Daywalker three times, in 1998’s Blade (the first successful Marvel Comics film), 2002’s Blade II and 2004’s Blade Trinity. He was replaced by rapper Sticky Fingaz for Spike’s Blade TV series, which only lasted one season in 2006.