NFL
By: Rick O’Donnell
If you were to tell me that the juggernaut MCU had a movie set up starring Academy Award-winning actor Marhershala Ali, I would assume it would’ve already made $1 billion at the box office six years later. Sadly, the movie isn’t even close to being done, as the script was just rewritten, and now the process of looking for the director has started. But why? Why is a project that seems to be teed up for success taking so long to get made and get right?
After all, people can claim that Iron Man saved Marvel and put Marvel Studios on the map. However, the Blade trilogy was right there all along for New Line Cinema before Disney even stuck gold. While Batman and Superman were big for Warner Bros, who also owned New Line Cinema, Marel wasn’t quite the box office success. As a matter of fact, Spider-Man in 2002 was laying the groundwork for the future of superhero movies long before what we now know as the MCU and that trailed Blade by four years.
So why is it such a project when it should be an overwhelming success? First of all, it has big shoes to fill. The newest iteration has big shoes to fill. While some considered the trilogy to have gone downhill with each sequel, the initial film was fantastic. With that said, until recently, not many Marvel projects reached the scrutiny of the third Blade movie, Blade Trinity. The use of Ryan Reynolds’ Deadpool and the creative changes the studio allowed to be made with the character struck a chord with fans.
Right then and there, a line was drawn in the sand for any future Blade projects. It was in that moment and everything beyond that fans showed just how passionate they were about the characters and staying true to their comic counterparts. Some studios still choose to put their creative spin on them, and that’s why they continue to fail. Maybe the current cast and crew don’t want to make the same mistakes again.
Second, Wesley Snipes crushed the role. Ask any actor who has played Batman how hard it is to recreate a character once the actor before them becomes a fan favorite. Marhershala Ali is no slouch when it comes to acting. It was absolutely an insane idea for the MCU to kill him off as Cottonmouth on Luke Cage. Still, a fan-favorite is a fan-favorite. Once an audience gets an idea in their head that no one can match that performance, you have to make sure that you put everything into tackling the right story and paying that character the proper respect.
Then, as always, you have to consider Blade’s place in the MCU because nothing is done by chance, and Marvel movies are almost never one-and-done these days. How does Blade lend to an overall larger story? Will this lead to a multi-picture deal? What if it becomes one of the rare flops in the new era of streaming?
There’s a lot of pressure when it comes to an MCU project, and Blade is not free from that pressure. The movie will eventually come out. It’s just a matter of what, if anything, they get right.
