Marvel giveth and Marvel taketh away. On the same day that Ryan Reynolds tweeted Hugh Jackman would be reviving the character of Wolverine in Deadpool 3 (thank you, Multiverse!), comes word that the reboot of the Blade vampire film franchise has lost the director who had been attached to it from almost the start, Bassam Tariq.
Marvel issued a statement on the subject, noting, “Due to continued shifts in our production schedule, Bassam is no longer moving forward as director of Blade, but will remain an executive producer of the film. We appreciate Bassam’s talent and all the work he’d done getting Blade to where it is.”
The film had been set to go into production in November, and now there’s a serious question of whether or not things will remain on schedule. The only thing certain is that Mahershala Ali will bring the character, made famous by Wesley Snipes, to the screen. Ali made a vocal cameo as the character in a tag sequence on Eternals. The character was created in the pages of Marvel’s Tomb of Dracula by Marv Wolfman.
Disney needs to hire Len Wiseman to direct the movie.