The Blade Reboot Marvel Almost Made Sounds Incredible

With an Oscar-winning star, the revival of a cult favorite Marvel superhero, and a rare R rating, Marvel's "Blade" reboot was set to be one of the most exciting developments in the Marvel Cinematic Universe in years. But bringing the daywalker into the MCU has been harder than ice skating uphill, and in the video above, we'll go over everything we know about the movie we've missed out on.

It was in 2019 that Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige took the stage at San Diego Comic Con to unveil the next phase of the MCU. Listed alongside films like "Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings," "Eternals," and "Black Widow" was "Blade." The eponymous daywalker was played by Wesley Snipes from 1998 to 2004, and finding an actor who could fill his shoes was going to be difficult, but Feige found the perfect match in Mahershala Ali. Even better, it was revealed that this new "Blade" would follow in the R-rated footsteps of "Deadpool," with all the blood and guts that that promised.

But in the nearly seven years since that announcement, it seems like we're no closer to seeing Ali slice a vampire with a katana. Not only that, but Snipes beat Ali to the punch, putting on the trench coat one more time for a cameo in 2024's "Deadpool and Wolverine." We don't know if "Blade" will ever escape development hell and return to the land of the living, but everything we've heard about this proposed reboot sounds fantastic. So watch the video above to get a taste of what we might've seen.

We've only been able to piece together small slivers of information about what Mahershala Ali's "Blade" film would have entailed. One of the biggest hints comes from a very different vampire movie: Ryan Coogler's "Sinners." Producer Sev Ohanian explained in 2025 that "Sinners" costume designer Ruth E. Carter was able to repurpose unused costumes from the "Blade" movie for "Sinners," revealing that "Blade" would have also been set 100 years ago, in the 1920s.

We also know that the film would have featured Mia Goth, star of the "X" trilogy and Guillermo del Toro's "Frankenstein," as a vampire named Lillith, who happens to be none other than the daughter of Dracula. While technically still attached to the film, Goth admitted in a recent interview that the project seemed to stall out after an initial bout of pre-production.

It's positively heartbreaking to watch the video above and see just how close we got to seeing Ali as "Blade," despite the movie's behind-the-scenes issues, because based on all the elements they assembled, from the cast to the crew, it sounds like it might have been incredible.