Marvel's BLADE Reboot Writer Responds to Claim that the Film's Story Pushed Mahershala Ali's Title Character to 4th Lead

Marvel’s fifth phase is going through some growing pains right now, having gone through the pandemic production setbacks, the strikes this year, the waning fan excitement, fluctuating box office numbers, etc. We’ve heard of the studio firing writers and directors on the upcoming series Daredevil, and other rumors concerning the film reboot of Blade. But it turns out the latter may not be true.

The film Blade has been long-gestating at the studio without much news coming from its production. A recent report from Variety revealed that the movie “has gone through at least five writers, two directors and one shutdown six weeks before production.” It goes on to say that “one person familiar with the script permutations says the story at one point morphed into a narrative led by women and filled with life lessons.” Perhaps the most shocking claim says that the lead character, “Blade was relegated to the fourth lead, a bizarre idea considering that the studio had two-time Oscar winner [Mahershala] Ali on board.”  

The report claims that Ali was ready to exit over script issues until MCU President Kevin Feige went back to the drawing board and hired Michael Green, the Oscar-nominated writer of Logan, to start anew. The report also said that talk around town is that the studio is looking to make the film, now slated for 2025, on a budget of less than $100 million — a deviation from Marvel’s big-spending strategy.

That’s quite a lot to dig into, but one of the film’s original writers, Michael Starburry, who worked on a draft of the Blade script prior to the Hollywood strikes, felt compelled to dispell a portion of the claims, stating in a post on X:

I worked on a draft of this before the strike. Never saw a version where Blade was 4th lead or it was a "narrative led by women and filled with life lessons" but I suppose a lot could have happened since I had anything to do with it. He was in 99% of the scripts I was a part of.

It’s interesting to hear that someone who worked that closely with the script has debunked this rumor. It makes you wonder how much we’re hearing from behind the scenes at Marvel is true. All we really hope is that Blade gets a good script and a great adaptation. Are you looking forward to Blade?