Blade might be a little less bloody when he makes his debut in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. After Wesley Snipes previously played the popular Marvel character in a trilogy of R-rated movies, Blade will be rebooted with Mahershala Ali taking over the role in an upcoming movie from Marvel Studios. Many fans had been hoping for the reboot to get an R rating like its predecessors, but recent comments from Marvel head Kevin Feige seem to suggest that this isn’t the case.
Though it’s been confirmed Deadpool 3 will be R-rated, Feige explained during Disney’s TCA event that this is the only R-rated movie currently in development at Marvel Studios. Because the Blade reboot is already in development, this essentially means that Feige doesn’t expect the new movie to have an R rating. As Feige said at the event:
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“Other than Deadpool, which has already established itself as a certain genre and a certain rating, that we already said we would not mess with when we started working on Deadpool – which we have – other than that, we haven’t encountered a story or a storyline or a character’s journey that a PG-13, or the tone, or the ratings we’ve been using up to this point has prevented us… We’ve told all the stories that we wanted to with the tonality and the rating we have now.”
This month, it was reported that Watchmen scribe Stacy Osei-Kuffour has been tapped to pen the screenplay for the Blade reboot, which has also reportedly been titled as Blade, the Vampire Slayer. It hasn’t been explained why the movie has been given a title very similar to another popular franchise about a fictional vampire hunter, though it might be a way to help differentiate the new movie from the previous Blade trilogy with Snipes in the lead role. A director hasn’t yet been named.
While Snipes won’t be playing Blade any longer, it’s still possible we’ll see him in Blade, the Vampire Slayer in some capacity. The actor recently said in an interview with CinemaBlend that “you never know” if he’ll make a surprise cameo, as he’s “open to play with everybody.” As of now, however, Snipes has no attachment to the upcoming reboot, though he wishes Ali the very best with his take on the character.
“I don’t have any involvement,” Snipes recently told UPROXX. “but I support the young artists and I support Marvel in their business decisions. It’s a beautiful thing. I think he’s a heck of a job. He’s got a heck of a job on his hands.”
No release date has yet been set by Marvel Studios for Blade, the Vampire Slayer, and it also remains unclear when production will begin. In the meantime, the Marvel Cinematic Universe has kicked off Phase Four with WandaVision on Disney+ and the MCU’s next movie, Black Widow, scheduled to premiere in May. Hopefully, we’ll get some new updates on when to expect the Blade reboot in the near future. This news comes to us from The Hollywood Reporter.
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