Blade Reboot Secretly Replacing Him With A Woman?
Marvel’s Blade reboot has had a troubled production, and our earlier story on the supposed cause of the issues behind the scene regarding the alleged plot can now be expanded upon. Bounding Into Comics backs up the rumors regarding the plot being a ripoff of the Kate Beckinsale vampire franchise Underworld, with the latest leaks centered on Blade’s daughter, a character that will get her first solo comic book series next year, lending credence to the leaks. After replacing Iron Man and Black Panther with female characters, the vampire hunter–in his own debut movie–may be the next character to have a female successor.
The leaked plot details have Blade starting in 1920’s New Orleans with a pregnant woman, Blade’s mother, seeking treatment from Dr. Deacon Frost. Surprising no one that saw the first Wesley Snipes led film, Frost is a vampire and leaves Blade’s pregnant mother to die in the streets, where a prostitute rescues the newborn and raises him as her own. The film will then jump forward 50 years and introduce the characters Hannibal King and Rachel Van Helsing; the latter being a descendant of the famous vampire hunter.
The pair are saved by Mahershala Ali’s Blade, which then triggers a flashback sequence to the vampire hunter’s upbringing after hearing the word “Frost.” At this point, Blade takes a cue from Solo: A Star Wars Story, by explaining how he got the name Blade. If this was the point that caused the original director, Bassam Tariq, to leave the project it is unlikely that any fans would blame him.
According to the leaked plot, it gets worse and goes directly into Underworld: Awakening ripoff territory as rumored. Blade, King, and Van Helsing go to retrieve a powerful weapon under the control of Deacon Frost only to discover that the weapon is a teenage girl. Blade foreshadows this in the usual chaste Marvel movie manner by showing young Blade expressing interest in a jazz singer while growing up in New Orleans, exhibiting the same sense of subtly found in most Young Adult novels.
The teenage girl, Alex, is a Daywalker like Blade. After reproducing plot beats from the first Blade movie, Frost ends up being defeated by Blade and Alex. Leaked details back up claims that Mahershala Ali found the movie to be short and boring with limited action scenes; going by the leaks, it appears to only have two action scenes of significant size.
In other depressing news for fans hoping to see Blade back on the big screen is a decree by Kevin Feige, the producer behind the entire MCU, that only Deadpool 3 will show copious amounts of blood. Blade will be rated PG-13, raising the question of how a vampire movie specifically about edged weapons can be made while showing very limited quantities of blood and almost no gore? New director Yann Demange appears to have their work cut out for them in salvaging the production.
Joining Demange on the set of Blade is a new writer, Michael Starrbury, which means the leaks to date may not match up with the final script. Fans of the comics, Wesley Snipe films, or the short-lived television series, will likely breathe a sigh of relief over re-writes to the current script.
