Like Lanterns star Aaron Pierre, Delroy Lindo was cast in an earlier version of Blade before eventually departing the project amid a seemingly endless series of rewrites and creative team changes (the one constant has been Mahershala Ali's involvement).
We don't know who Lindo was set to play, though it was widely speculated that he'd been cast as Jamal Afari, the man who raised Blade and taught him everything he knows about hunting vampires.
The actor is no longer attached to the movie, and it's unclear whether he or the character will feature in a potential future iteration.
Talking to Entertainment Weekly about his role in Sinners, Lindo recalled, "When Marvel came to me, they seemed to be really interested in my input. And in the various conversations I had with producers, the writer, the director at the time, it was all leading into being very inclusive."
"It was really exciting conceptually, but it was also exciting in terms of the character that was going to form," the actor continued. "And then, for whatever reason, it just went off the rails."
While he declined to reveal his role in the movie, he did say that "there was a Marcus Garvey-esque component to who this man was shaping up to be."
"I'm not saying that it would've been an out-and-out Garvey-ite. Not that, but just in terms of how this man's philosophy, his ethos, and what was driving him," Lindo teased. "He was a character who had, very similar to Sinners, created a community, a Black community. He was a character who was the head of this community."
This isn't the first time he's missed out on a Marvel role due to creative issues behind the scenes. Lindo was once attached to Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. spin-off, Marvel's Most Wanted, starring Adrianne Palicki's Bobbi Morse and Nick Blood's Lance Hunter. In that, he'd been tapped to play Dominic Fortune.
If you're a Blade fan, it's fair to say the past six-or-so years haven't been the easiest. Ali was announced as the MCU's Daywalker at the San Diego Comic-Con in 2019, only for the pandemic to come along the following year and delay Marvel Studios' plans for the movie.
Blade has been undated for a while now, making recent claims that it's on "indefinite hold" not in the least bit surprising. However, the latest update was a positive one after we learned John Wick franchise director Chad Stahelski could be in line to helm the reboot. If so, it will be from a script by Michael Green and Eric Pearson.
If it happens, the hope is that Blade will be followed by a Midnight Sons movie featuring the Daywalker alongside characters like Moon Knight, Werewolf by Night, and Clea. Stay tuned for updates as we have them.