Actors set to appear in the MCU’s Blade have apparently been recast, and fans aren’t happy about it.
Blade has been in development for the Marvel Cinematic Universe for several years now, and was officially announced in 2019.
However, Marvel has had difficulty with producing the film, evident by a series of rewrites and delays that has put the project on hold as of 2025.
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In April last year it was rumoured by journalist Jeff Sneider that Marvel is recasting Blade, with all actors aside from Mahershala Ali being replaced.
This means Delroy Lindo and Mia Goth, who were also set to appear, have apparently left the project.
Goth spoke in June later that year about the production, saying that the creators “really care, they do. They want to make a great movie. That’s the sense that I get from them and that feels good.”
Regarding the recastings, one fan wrote on Reddit: "Nooooooooooooooooo! I was so excited to see Mia Goth!"
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"This seems obvious?" wrote another fan. "Lindo was cast 2-3 years ago. Goth got attached before Pizzolatto joined, and that was before the strikes."
"You would think a vampire action franchise that already spawned a successful trilogy of films and has an Oscar winner in the lead role wouldn't be this difficult to create," wrote a third comment.
Since then, the news of Michael Green rewriting from scratch, the new budget structure, and the rated R basically indicates that they essentially restarted the production process entirely.In 2022, Sneider also commented that the script was “roughly 90 pages long”, which is unusually short for a production of this type.
The general rule when it comes to screenwriting is that one page equals one minute of screentime.
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So 90 pages would come to a 90 minute film, which is pretty short for a Marvel production. That’s not always the case though, as longer scripts can be made into shorter films, and vice versa.
Several writers have been hired to pen the script to Blade over the years. In its earliest form, a script for an MCU Blade film was ready as early as 2013.
Stacy Osei-Kuffour was hired to write a new script in 2021, with Beau DeMayo, Michael Starrbury, Nic Pizzolatto, and Michael Green each doing separate rewrites months apart.
Similarly, Blade’s director has also changed hands a few times, with Bassam Tariq being replaced by Yann Demange in 2022.
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If the production of Blade manages to eventually get off the ground, it’s looking increasingly likely the character will be debuting in Phase 7, which is expected to occur in 2028 at the earliest.