Marvel Zombies was first announced at the San Diego Comic-Con in 2022 as part of a splashy "Marvel Animation" slate reveal. Things went quiet after that, though it's since been confirmed that the four-episode series will premiere on Disney+ on October 3, later this year.
While the concept originated in the comics, it wasn't until What If...? season 1 that Marvel Studios finally put the spotlight on undead superheroes. In an episode titled "What If... Zombies?!" we watched as several fan-favourite heroes, including Spider-Man, fought off a whole host of undead fan-favourites.
Marvel Zombies will serve as a sequel to that, and the What If...? series finale offered a glimpse at one of the Variants expected to take centre stage in the story: Mahershala Ali's Blade/Moon Knight.
While the Oscar winner had a brief voice cameo in 2021's Eternals, the Daywalker's solo movie remains stuck in limbo after being announced at Comic-Con nearly six years ago. When Ali recorded lies as this Moon Knight Variant, we'd imagine the intention was for us to have already met him as Blade by the time Marvel Zombies aired.
If the Blade movie fails to materialise, then Ali's MCU work could boil down to Eternals' confusing, unresolved post-credits scene and what we're assuming will be a vampire and zombie-hunting Moon Knight in Marvel Zombies.
There were rumblings back in February that John Wick franchise director Chad Stahelski could be in line to helm the Blade reboot. The latest draft was written by Michael Green and Eric Pearson, and according to a recent report, the filmmaker has now emerged as a frontrunner to finally bring Blade back to theaters. We'll see.
"It ties right in. It is the same universe," Marvel Television boss Brad Winderbaum previously said of Marvel Zombies. "If you've never seen that episode of What If…? you do come at the universe from a different angle. So you could just watch the four episodes of Marvel Zombies coming in completely blind because it does tell its own story."
"But if you do know that episode of What If…? and what happens in it, it does connect entirely to that episode," he added.
If Blade does happen, then we anticipate being followed by a Midnight Sons movie featuring the Daywalker alongside characters like Moon Knight, Werewolf by Night, and Clea.
Take a closer look at What If...? and Marvel Zombies' take on this Blade/Moon Knight mashup in the Instagram post below.