'Blade' Loses Another Director, And Fans Are Losing Their Patience

Back in 2019, when it was announced at San Diego Comic-Con that Blade would be joining the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and that two-time Academy Award winner Mahershala Ali would be playing the Daywalker in his own solo film? Fans were happy, excited, and couldn’t wait for this version of Blade to appear on the big screen.

It is now 2024, and with every news announcement that is made about Blade? Those very same fans look and feel like this.

Yesterday, it was announced via The Wrap that Yann Demange is no longer directing Blade, and according to inside sources, departed the project several weeks ago. Demange, who has directed episodes of Lovecraft Country and Top Boy, is the second director to leave the director’s chair for Blade, after Mogul Mowgli director Bassam Tariq left in 2022.

The parting with the French-Algerian filmmaker actually happened a while ago and was entirely amicable…Mahershala Ali is still attached to star as the half-human vampire hunter. Ali is currently in talks with Universal and Amblin to join the next “Jurassic World” film.

According to an insider with knowledge, getting “Blade” right is much more important than getting the film out. The pressure to produce as much content as possible has been lifted and the studio is now looking to release just two films per year, which gives the team at Marvel Studios some breathing room … Now, more than ever, Marvel does not want to rush something into production that isn’t ready. The “Blade” movies were deeply important to the Marvel brand back in the late 1990s/early 2000s, and the team feels an incredible amount of responsibility and pressure to crack the character and story.

The production for Blade has been plagued by numerous obstacles: Stacy Amma Osei-Kuffour, who wrote for the series Watchmen and Pen15, was hired in February 2021 to write the film’s screenplay with Tariq, only for that screenplay to be rewritten by Beau DeMayo (executive producer/showrunner for X-Men ‘97, who departed the series for reasons unknown). In November 2022, Michael Starrbury, who wrote for When They See Us and Colin in Black & White was hired to write an entirely new script for Blade. Nic Pizzolatto (creator/executive producer of True Detective who is also known for being very respectful of how others have contributed to the series since he’s no longer its showrunner) and Michael Green (writer of all three Kenneth Branagh-as-Hercule Poirot film adaptations, and co-writer of Logan and Blade Runner 2049) were hired to do script rewrites the following year. Green was hired after Ali allegedly came very close to leaving the project, due to his issues with the script, and how Blade somehow ended up being the fourth lead in his own film.

The Blade screenplay is now being penned by Eric Pearson, writer of Black Widow, co-writer of Thor: Ragnarok, and who has also contributed to the screenplays for the upcoming Marvel films The Fantastic Four and Thunderbolts*. (FYI: Don’t bother asking what the asterisk next to Thunderbolts is for, as Marvel Studios CEO Kevin Feige is keeping that answer under his ever-present baseball cap until after it opens in theaters. At least one theory has arisen so far that the Thunderbolts are actually the Dark Avengers, and that the team’s real name will be revealed in the film.)

Mahershala Ali is reportedly still attached to portray Blade (who was heard, but not seen, in a post-credits stinger for Eternals), but many fans on social media have reached the point where they’re not only wondering how long that will last (especially since Ali just turned fifty years old like Sally O’Malley herself), but some of them now feeling that Marvel Studios should cancel the film altogether. Almost everything that has been announced about Blade (production delays, directors walking away from the project, numerous writers being hired and fired) since it was first given the green light has only made it look more and more like the MCU version of The Flash, minus its lead actor constantly making headlines with questionable behavior that leaves everyone wondering why they aren’t in jail. It has left those same fans asking these questions: Why is Blade, out of all the MCU films, having the most difficulty being adapted? How has Ali not walked away already after years of delays that make it seem as if his time is being wasted on a project that is seemingly going nowhere, especially when he approached Feige and made it clear that he would love to play Blade? Do Marvel and Disney know how much noise we will make, and how many damn tables we will flip, if Ali actually does walk away because of their bullsh-t? How hard is it for both studios to just give us two hours of a Black dhampir looking cool as hell as he kicks the crap out of every other vampire that crosses his path, and do so in a film that (hopefully) has an R rating like Deadpool & Wolverine?

Some fans are saying that this Blade reboot is actually cursed, and that the original Blade himself, Wesley Snipes, is probably the one doing the cursing. It’s too early to tell who will be the next person in the director’s chair that finally takes Blade to the finish line. Chad Stahelski (co-director of John Wick, and director of its three sequels) has expressed his interest in helming the film, even though he has the Highlander remake with Henry Cavill, and the adaptation of Ghost of Tsushima, on his plate. There have even been jokes about how maybe Marvel and Disney should just go ahead and give Guillermo del Toro a call, and considering that he did an amazing job with Blade II? I wouldn’t be surprised if the thought has seriously crossed Feige’s mind as a last-ditch effort to keep the expectations of fans from getting any lower than they have already.

Blade is scheduled to open in theaters November 7, 2025.