The Continental Director Reveals Why He Turned Down Directing Blade

Summary

• Albert Hughes reveals why he turned down the opportunity to direct Marvel’s Blade reboot, citing discomfort with the controlled nature of the superhero movie system.
• The reboot of Blade faces the challenge of surpassing the beloved Wesley Snipes version, and creative differences with lead actor Mahershala Ali have caused delays.
• Marvel Studios has a history of conflicts and delays with projects, such as Daredevil: Born Again, due to changes in directors and writers. The release date for Blade may still be subject to revision.

The director of The Continental: From the World of John Wick, the first tv show from the Keanu Reeves action franchise, Albert Hughes, almost directed the reboot of Blade for Marvel Studios. However, the filmmaker ended up saying no to the MCU, and recently explained exactly why he chose to step away from the project.

Blade is one of the most anticipated projects coming to the MCU, but also one of the most conflictive ones. It was 2019 when Marvel Studios announced that, following Disney’s purchase of Fox, the vampire hunter would be officially introduced into the Marvel universe with Mahershala Ali playing him.

Since then, many names have been linked to the production, as the behind-the-scenes team was constantly changing. And one of those who came very close to helming the film was Hughes. Speaking with Josh Horowitz on his podcast Happy, Sad, Confused, the director of The Continental explained the reasons why he ultimately decided to turn down the offer to direct Blade:

“I’ve been in talks with the obvious studio about superhero movies a couple of times, but I always felt uncomfortable because I knew it was a system. And they’re very nice, and I went through a long process. In fact, I broke down all their movies and put them in a spreadsheet and broke down the box office, watching the title scores, where the VFX ranks, I had to do a deep dive on them. And I got, halfway, not very close, halfway through the process, and I go, ‘No, I would implode from the kind of controlled nature of that world and not being able to do what I do.’ And I don’t understand why a real filmmaker would want to be in that system. I understand why up-and-comers would, which they do a good job of. finding people at the right time. But I think I would implode.”

Related: The Continental Director Shares The Challenges of Recasting The Characters of John Wick’s World.

What’s Going On with Blade?

Marvel Studios

The reboot of Blade has a difficult task, which is to overcome the high bar that the Wesley Snipes version left. Faced with this challenge, and having an actor as acclaimed as Ali as the lead, the demands are at their maximum for the studio. In fact, most of the changes that have been made to the script have to do with the actor not liking the story that as presented in the initial drafts. In a recent report, it was revealed that the two-time Oscar-winner was close to leaving the project due to creative differences, and that is the reason behind most of the delays that the production has suffered.

This is not the first time that a project has generated conflicts for Marvel Studios; many productions in the past have had to delay their releases due to the constant change of directors or writers, as is the case with Daredevil: Born Again. The series starring Charlie Cox had managed to film some content before the actors’ strike, and when Kevin Feige saw that material he was not convinced by the result, and decided to rewrite the entire series and change the team behind it.

The arrival of Blade is currently set as February 14, 2025, although this could be revised yet again in the near future.

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