Following reports about Mahershala Ali threatened to leave the Blade reboot because one of the scripts planned to have him as a fourth lead in his own MCU movie, one of the writers took to social media to respond to the rumors.
via: Screen Rant
Despite being announced all the way back in July 2019, the new Blade movie with Ali has had a complicated journey. From numerous director changes, rewrites, and delays, the MCU audience will have to wait a bit longer to see the iconic superhero reimagined in the Avengers-based franchise.
It has been a day since the initial report emerged about what is going on behind the scenes with the upcoming Marvel Studios movies, including the reveal that Blade's screenplay had Ali's character supposedly being treated as the fourth lead in his own movie. However, Michael Starrbury, one of the screenwriters who worked on Blade, has broken his silence on the troubling reports about the MCU reboot movie.
Starrbury stressed that he had worked on a draft for Blade before the Writers Guild of America strike went into effect. During his time on Blade, he "never saw a version where Blade was the 4th lead" nor that there was a "narrative led by women and filled with life lessons." However, Starrbury added, "I suppose a lot could have happened since I had anything to do with it," before sharing that Blade "was in 99% of the scripts I was a part of."
@TheRealJQuinten asked the writer "if Blade isn't about Blade then why would we watch it?"Starrbury added, "He was in almost every scene when I was involved. I don't know what happened but I'll just say I seriously doubt he was ever the 4th lead in any draft." At the time of this story's publication, Marvel Studios has not commented on the initial Blade script reports.
The MCU has been an unorganized mess as of late. We've been waiting fiv years for them to get this film up and running, and we haven't gotten a proper Blade film since Blade II. This story also feels similar to Blade Trinity where Blade took a backseat in his own film while the Nightstalkers took center stage.
And let's not revisit the crazy stories from the set as legedarily told by Trinity star Patton Oswalt. Also the stories regarding the budget for the filmbeing under $100 million, I shouldn't be surprised by this news at all since studios are notorious for underplaying and underbudgeting films with black actors in the lead. Meanwhile the budget for The Marvels is $278 million.
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