It was a big deal when Mahershala Ali walked onto the Hall H stage at San Diego Comic-Con 2019 as part of Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige’s announcement that the actor would lead a Blade reboot. And yet, six and a half years later, all we have to show for this is Ali making a voice cameo as Marvel’s Daywalker in Eternals. Blade keeps getting hit with setbacks, and now there’s a rumor claiming that the upcoming Marvel movie is “dead,” though there may still be some hope for Ali’s vampire hunter.
Let’s cover the potentially bad news first. The Hot Mic co-host Jeff Sneider claimed in the show’s latest episode that he’s heard Blade is no longer moving forward. That on its own would be disappointing. After all, Wesley Snipes led three Blade movies from 1998 to 2004, and while their qualities all differed, you’d think it would’ve been easy enough for the powers-that-be at Marvel Studios to seamlessly throw in Blade going around and killing vampires fit within the Marvel Cinematic Universe mythology.
Well, that’s where the good news comes in, because we may still get to see that. Jeff Sneider also mentioned that Blade will now be introduced in a Midnight Sons movie instead, but didn’t mention any further details about it. Assuming this information is accurate, while it’s disappointing that Marvel Studios won’t make that solo Blade movie that got many fans pumped at the end of the 2010s (I would have especially liked to see the 1920s-set version), it hasn’t entirely abandoned the character.
Created by Howard Mackie, Andy Kubert and Bobbie Chase, the original Midnight Sons team made its first full appearance in 1992’s Ghost Rider #31. The first lineup consisted of Blade, Morbius, Johnny Blaze and Danny Ketch, with the latter two being Ghost Riders. The team has primarily consisted of supernatural and darker Marvel characters, including Wolverine, Doctor Strange, Magik, Iron Fist, Man-Thing, Moon Knight, Scarlet Witch and Werewolf by Night, among many others.
Outside of the comics, the team has only headlined the video game Marvel’s Midnight Suns (notice the altered spelling), which came out in 2022 and earned positive critical reception, but failed to sell well. So this rumored Midnight Sons/Suns movie would be the group’s biggest introduction to the general public, and Mahershala Ali would play Blade as part of an ensemble rather than as the lead character. I’d be ok with this, especially if it means we would see him team up with established MCU characters like Ghost Rider (this time the Robbie Reyes version), Moon Knight and Man-Thing.
However, until Marvel Studios announces that Blade is dead and/or that Midnight Sons has gotten the greenlight, take all this with a grain of salt. What we can count on is that Spider-Man: Brand New Day and Avengers: Doomsday are the next MCU movies coming up, arriving July 31 and December 18, respectively, on the 2026 release schedule.
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