It's been over six years since Marvel Studios ended its Hall H panel at the 2019 San Diego Comic-Con by announcing that Oscar-winner Mahershala Ali would lead a new Blade movie.
Since then, the project has been through multiple creative teams, lost various cast members, and even become the butt of a memorable gag from returning Daywalker Wesley Snipes in Deadpool & Wolverine. Blade remains somewhere on the horizon, but still has no confirmed release date.
However, we'll get to see the Daywalker in action in next week's Marvel Zombies from Marvel Animation. There, the vampire will serve as the new Fist of Khonshu—a Blade/Moon Knight hybrid dubbed "Blade Knight"—and it turns out there's a very good reason for that creative pivot.
"We felt like Blade was gonna be really exciting to put on screen, and we never thought that we would come out before the live-action Blade," Marvel Television boss Brad Winderbaum told ComicBook.com. "It was always designed to be after. But we knew that we’d be in concurrent development."
"Sometimes when you’re chasing live-action like that, if they pivot, and you don’t pivot in the same way, you get stuck because animation needs a lot more lead time," he continued. "Making him the Fist of Konshu freed us up in a lot of ways, because he became now a new character with lore that we were creating for him, which let us kind of be more free and less tethered to the live action plans."
It doesn't sound like we should expect Marvel Zombies to give us an idea of what the MCU's Blade will be like then, as it's clear Marvel Animation was tasked with making its animated version as different as possible. That extended to Todd Williams voicing the anti-hero in place of Ali.
Marvel Zombies showrunner Bryan Andrews also chimed in to say, "It was rad [seeing Blade in Marvel Zombies]. We had no idea that it would be the first. We really thought that the Blade movie would be out and done by now, so it turned into this really wonderful, surprise privilege and honor to have him come out."
"So, the people who are nerding out over the trailer are nerding out over the big set piece of Blade," Andrews noted. "And I think it’s really high praise that when they see that, they go, ‘The movie! Why can’t we have a movie? It better be that cool! Oh my God!’, you know? That type of stuff is so gratifying to hear, so I’m thankful for it."
Thunderbolts* and The Fantastic Four: First Steps writer Eric Pearson is currently working on the Blade script, and all signs point to it being released post-Avengers: Secret Wars. Hopefully.
Original plans called for Blade to be a period piece, though it also looked set to pair the Daywalker up with Eternals' Dane Whitman/Black Knight at one time. Now, we have no idea what to expect from the movie.
Run, lurch, but definitely don’t walk to Disney+ on September 24 to catch the four-episode Marvel Zombies.