What's Inside?
- Kevin Feige confirms Blade's delay was due to weak scripts and Marvel’s shift from quantity-driven content to quality-first storytelling.
- Mahershala Ali is still set to play Blade, with the film now confirmed to take place in a modern-day setting.
- Marvel has cycled through four Blade scripts and is determined not to move forward without an “insanely great” version.
Marvel’s highly anticipated Blade reboot, starring Mahershala Ali, has been stuck in development limbo since its 2019 Comic-Con announcement. With years of rewrites, director dropouts, and missed release windows, fans began to wonder if the daywalker would ever return to the big screen. But Marvel Studios President Kevin Feige has finally addressed the delays, and it’s more than just creative roadblocks. In his candid revelation, Feige points to a larger issue that plagued Marvel’s recent strategy.
“Quantity Trumped Quality”: Marvel Admits to Losing Focus During Disney+ Content Surge
For the first time, Kevin Feige openly acknowledged what many critics and fans had long suspected— Marvel Studios had overextended itself. Speaking on July 18 to a group of journalists, Feige said, “For the very first time ever, quantity trumped quality.” (Via Variety) This moment of introspection came after a period where Marvel rapidly expanded its universe to satisfy Disney+ demands. According to Feige, the studio churned out more than 100 hours of content in just six years—a sharp contrast to the 51 hours produced between 2007 and 2019.
The expansion included the Blade reboot, which fell victim to this rushed production culture. Feige revealed that four versions of the script had been drafted, yet none felt strong enough to move forward. Feige said:
“We didn’t feel like, as we often do, you can start and have a good script and make it a great script through production. We didn’t feel confident that we could do that on ‘Blade’ and didn’t want to do that to Mahershala and didn’t want to do that to us.”
“We didn’t want to simply just put a leather outfit on him and have him start killing vampires. It had to be unique. It fell into the time when we started pulling back and saying, ‘Only accept insanely great.’ And it wasn’t ‘insanely great’ at the time.”
Feige was also quick to clear the air regarding Ali’s involvement, confirming, “He’s still attached,” and emphasizing Marvel’s continued commitment to getting the film right. The choice to set the reboot in modern times was also shared by Feige, noting that previous versions included both historical and contemporary settings: “There were three or four, two that were period, two that are not. We’ve landed on modern day and that’s what we’re focusing on.”
A Reset with Purpose: Why Blade’s Delay Might Be the Best Thing for the Franchise
Marvel’s reluctance to rush Blade into production signals a shift in priorities. Gone are the days of plugging characters into a formula. Feige stressed that they didn’t want Ali to just throw on a leather jacket and start slicing vampires. “It had to be unique,” he emphasized, underscoring Marvel’s renewed focus on meaningful storytelling.
It’s worth noting that the film has endured more turbulence than most Marvel titles. Since 2019, it has cycled through multiple writers—Michael Starrbury, Nic Pizzolatto, and Michael Green—and lost two directors, Bassam Tariq and Yann Demange. Flying Lotus even revealed he had been tapped to score the film before it was indefinitely shelved. In the meantime, Marvel lent some of Blade’s costumes to Ryan Coogler for Sinners. Feige joked, “Ryan Coogler called and said, ‘We’d love some costumes for Sinners.’ And we said, ‘Take ’em man, no problem.’”
Currently, Eric Pearson— who is also working on Fantastic Four— is penning the latest version of the script, and Marvel is searching for a new director. Although Blade was removed from its 2025 release date, Feige’s words make it clear that this pause isn’t a retreat, but a recalibration.
Ultimately, Feige’s transparency offers hope. In a landscape saturated with superhero fatigue, Marvel’s willingness to course-correct shows that the studio may finally be taking its own mantra seriously: “only accept insanely great.” And for a character as iconic as Blade, that’s exactly what fans deserve.
