Writers Strike Causes Pushes Production on Marvel's BLADE, But THUNDERBOLTS and DEADPOOL 3 Are Moving Forward
As expected, The Writer's Guild of America strike is causing all kinds of film and TV projects to be put on hold until things are resolved. As for how it’s affecting Marvel Studios, they have been forced to push back production on Mahershala Ali’s upcoming Blade movie.
Pre-production has been temporally shut down, and this comes just as the studio hired Nic Pizzolatto (True Detective) to write the script and he can’t do any work on that script during the strike, the studio figured i was best to push production on filming until the script was solid.
Blade is going to start production in late May in Atlanta with Yann Demange, who helmed the pilot of HBO’s boundary-pushing horror series Lovecraft Country, directing. It was previously reported that Marvel is looking to go with “a darker tone on this film than other MCU projects have been in the past.”
Mia Goth and Delroy Lindo are both also attached to star in the movie. Marvel has set a release date of September 6th, 2024.
As for Thunderbolts and Deadpool 3, according to THR, "Deadpool 3 is expected to go in front of cameras later this month" with Thunderbolts “still on track” to start shooting this June.
Having shot the previous movies in Vancouver, Deadpool 3 will set up in London while Marvel's Thunderbolts will film in Atlanta, Georgia. THR goes on to say that "Thunderbolts is still on track," standing in contrast to the Blade movie which was paused entirely. Marvel Studios is betting that the strike will be over before both of these big productions start shooting.
Despite having scripts for their films, Marvel Studios does lots of rewrites on the movies they make while they soot them. As you might imagine, Reynolds' Deadpool movies go through a lot of improv from Reyonlds. The projects move forward writers won’t be able to help out with the projects as they shoot.
The movie also stars Hugh Jackman as Wolverine, Emma Corrin as the villain, Morena Baccarin and Stefan Kapicic as Vanessa and Colossus, Matthew Macfadyen in an unknown role, Karan Soni as Dopinder, and Leslie Uggams as Blind Al. Oh yeah, Rob Delaney will also return as Peter!
Shawn Levy is directing Deadpool 3 and it will take Wolverine and Deadpool on a wild journey in the MCU. The movie will be released on November 8, 2024.