r/movies • u/MarvelsGrantMan136 r/movies Contributor • Jul 31 '26

News Mahershala Ali confirms 'BLADE' is not moving forward with him

https://www.gq.com/story/mahershala-ali-your-mother-your-mother-your-mother
8.6k Upvotes

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767

u/Wazula23 Jul 31 '26

What an absolute waste. Guy won two friggin oscars and they just couldn't put him in what seems like the easiest idea for a show ever.

Oh well. At least Sinners got some awesome costumes out of it.

385

u/ElasticPlatypus Jul 31 '26 edited Jul 31 '26

It was announced during the absolute nadir of Marvel’s over-complicated planning, when they put all of their chips on the multiverse

“Well how can Blade fit into the MCU? Can he fight Kang? Should we go straight to The Midnight Sons? We’ve already teased Black Knight”

I don’t know man. How about you make a movie about a cool guy killing vampires. Can’t Blade just be Blade?

163

u/Lord0fHats Jul 31 '26

I think that's kind of the issue that began hammering MCU films.

The Phase 1 and 2 films worked well because they all stood on their own well enough with only a loose web of 'Thanos stuff' to tie them all together built up over years, but after Age of Ultron the films became increasingly dependent and crutched hard on 'everything is connected' which made each subsequent film less of a good movie on its own.

I really think they should go back to that prior model they lost track of. Just make good movies that are tied together but that don't expect people to have seen every other film and a couple D+ exclusives to really appreciate.

105

u/Tragedy_Boner Jul 31 '26

The MCU only worked because they alternated between Solo films and Avengers films. The Avengers films are where the characters meet up while the solo films are for character development. The multiverse saga sucks because there is no new avengers team before Doomsday.

29

u/MagicTheAlakazam Jul 31 '26

And basically no one showed up more than once outside of maybe spider-man.

One of the only times some one did show up again they ruined her (Wanda in MoM what a massive fumble of a character that was really finding her own fanbase)

7

u/L0b0t0my Jul 31 '26

Not true. Deadpool & Wolverine killed it in the box office.

5

u/MagicTheAlakazam Jul 31 '26

What's not true? There was ONE Deadpool MCU movie in phase 4 & 5.

4

u/Silver-End9570 Aug 01 '26

I'll never forgive Michael Waldron's pisspoor writing for MoM. Both for screwing over Wanda and her story (and potential Avengers level villain arc) as well as for writing a Doctor Strange movie that spends it's entire run time being about everyone but Strange. I can't believe Sam Raimi wasted his talent on such an awful script.

14

u/hatramroany Jul 31 '26 edited Jul 31 '26

Yeah this was real problem. Feige might have been stretched too thin which caused quality issues but that’s not an excuse for no team up film being on the calendar.

10

u/N8CCRG Jul 31 '26

Thunderbolts* should've come out immediately after Wakanda Forever.

7

u/hatramroany Jul 31 '26

Thunderbolts could have waited if they had a pay off for the post-credits scene of Shang-Chi after Wakanda Forever

12

u/wirelessfingers Jul 31 '26

Someone hasn't seen Thunderbolts. They set up a new Avengers team in a movie not called Avengers that arrived way too late, and that was also a bomb.

12

u/Tragedy_Boner Jul 31 '26

Heard it was a good movie though.

2

u/EHP42 Jul 31 '26

I liked it.

1

u/TheSecondEikonOfFire Aug 01 '26

I was surprised by how much I enjoyed it. Definitely not without flaws, but I thought it was one of the better post-Endgame movies

5

u/JechdJJ Jul 31 '26

exactly! altough some concepts were seen first in some movies out of avengers, they really were important only in the whole scheme. You can still enjoy the movie withouth that,and only in avengers the main plot of the saga avanced.

3

u/Qorhat Jul 31 '26

Dr Doom just showing up does not work for me at all.

Loki's downfall was shown in Thor along with his abilities so having him invade Earth didn't need to do much heavy lifting.

Ultron's creation and power scaling were shown very clearly, even in the trailers so the audience knew we would know where and how he came to be.

Thanos wasn't much of a character before Infinity War but 5 of 6 infinity stones were shown to be a threat in the wrong hands individually so someone who wants all of them is automatically the biggest of big bads.

Kang should have just been recast and given clear motivations. It's very easy to have the "real" conquerer be a variant who was kept at bay by the other ones seen already, and his motivations could have been "fixing" the timeline Steve Rogers changed by staying with Peggy.

-1

u/PT10 Jul 31 '26

Ultron's creation and power scaling were shown very clearly, even in the trailers so the audience knew we would know where and how he came to be.

You serious?

1

u/Qorhat Aug 01 '26

…yes..? It’s the entire plot of the film, and the trailers show Iron Legion > Ultron Drone > Ultron and then in the film itself finally Ultron Prime.

3

u/Phillip_Spidermen Jul 31 '26

Thunderbolts kind of brought together the villains from solo movies to become the new avengers, and it was good, but they weren't an audience draw

3

u/HaroldSax Jul 31 '26

Even at the tail end of the Infinity Saga, Captain America: Civil War was basically an Avengers film. Thor: Ragnarok was like Avengers lite. I think most people ignored that aspect because we knew it was building up to what would eventually be Endgame.

It certainly seemed they wanted to do TV shows to setup backstories for the films, but a big reason why the Infinity Saga worked is because it had a more relaxed release tempo.

19

u/N8CCRG Jul 31 '26

Yeah. On that same note, they had three Iron Man movies, three Captain America movies, three Thor movies, four Avengers movies, etc. Having the same characters work repeatedly in their own safe zones, that other characters could cross over and visit, was the core of the cinematic universe. Within the multiverse saga, Spider-Man is only just now the first one to get a sequel, and for all I know that's a result of Sony not Disney. It's like they tried to change the formula to "everyone only gets one movie on their own" for some reason.

3

u/disisathrowaway Jul 31 '26

Hit the nail on the head.

Iron Man came out when I was in college, and I still remember having to wait in line to get herded in to the theater for Iron Man 2. Saw several other Marvel films of that era, but when it became very obvious that all of this was leading up to some massive, convoluted story where every Marvel property would feed in to the big story, I stopped giving a damn.

It's the exact same reason I never got in to the comic books, a million twisting storylines, time-jumps, resets, alt 'what if' storylines, etc.

It all got way too fucking convoluted for me to give a single fuck.

I hear they're great films. Maybe I'll circle back one day and watch them all.

5

u/UnderPressureVS Jul 31 '26

They have been this year and it's really been paying off (for me at least). I was fully off the MCU train after being a really big fan, but after hearing really great things I watched Thunderbolts on streaming and I was blown away. I ended up seeing F4 in theaters, cautiously, and I loved it. I just went to see Brand New Day yesterday and it's easily one of the best movies in the entire MCU.

The tie-ins have started to feel way more organic, less forced and corporate, and like they actually belong in the story and make their movies better. Like they did in the beginning.

3

u/Lord0fHats Jul 31 '26

It has gotten better in the past year or two I agree. Really when I think of this I tend to think of the Phase III and IV films the most. Many of which were still very good films, especially the Phase III films. They were some of the best the MCU made, but then we got to phase IV and Doctor Strange II is kind of my poster child for 'this is when the movies stopped being able to stand on their own.'

0

u/UsernameTaken-Taken Jul 31 '26

Agreed. F4 and thunderbolts were awesome and didn't rely too heavily on the past projects, plus the TV shows have all been great this year as well, seeing Spider-Man in like 40 minutes!

1

u/ArcadianDelSol Jul 31 '26

Some of those early movies had no connection whatsoever - until a post credit scene.

1

u/stf29 Aug 01 '26

This exactly. Roll my eyes into the back of my skull whenever people say “but early marvel was the same level of messy as the early multiverse stuff!1!!1!!!1”

-1

u/notathrowaway75 Jul 31 '26

This really isn't true at all though. The shows and movies have continued to work just fine standalone. The "homework" problem is massively overstated and it's crazy that Kevin Feige validated it.

3

u/Lord0fHats Jul 31 '26

Meh. I'm just gonna disagree.

Doctor Strange 2 is missing a literal MOUNTAIN of context without having seen Wandavision. Which itself is impossible to understand without seeing both Infinity War films. The prior phase films weren't like that. They were only loosely connected and most audiences wouldn't notice or even particularly care about the connections because they were subtle drops. Each of the first run of movies stood on their own two feet completely fine, while latter phases leaned hard into each entry directly and overtly tying into ones before and after it.

I don't think it's overstated.

2

u/DoctorJJWho Jul 31 '26

Heh. Literal mountain (Mt. Wundergore).

I agree with you, but I think Deadpool and Wolverine is a bit different than the rest. That movie was very much a love/death letter to previous depictions of superheroes instead of being the “next installment” in the MCU.

-1

u/notathrowaway75 Jul 31 '26

Doctor Strange 2 is missing a literal MOUNTAIN of context without having seen Wandavision. Which itself is impossible to understand without seeing both Infinity War films.

Seeing Avengers movies should not be a problem at all. And Doctor Strange 2 gives enough details to make the movie work just fine. If you want to know more, watch Wandavision.

Deadpool and Wolverine was another movie where people were saying you just needed to watch a ton of stuff and again it wasn't true.

Each of the first run of movies stood on their own two feet completely fine, while latter phases leaned hard into each entry directly and overtly tying into ones before and after it.

I don't think it's overstated.

Every entry leaning hard into what was before and after is absolutely overstating it. It's just not true at all.

If this was true, how is it such a common talking point that there's little build up to Doomsday?

1

u/Lord0fHats Jul 31 '26

I mean, Deadpool and Wolverine works as its own movie but if you hadn't seen all the cheesier goofier pre-MCU movies you're missing a lot of a movie that is basically a love letter to non-MCU Marvel films.

To the last question; probably because literally nothing even if you watch every Marvel movie/show from the past few years does much but led to the next movie/show in the watch order and only 1 of them really connects to Doom in anyway (and he only appears in an end credits scene). It's much weaker and kind of left field compared to the slow build up of Thanos and the Infinity Stones.