The production of Blade has been one of the biggest headaches Marvel Studios has had to endure in the last several years, and former X-Men ’97 showrunner Beau DeMayo has piled on the agony by revealing pitches he made before being “pulled off the project after reporting abuse on set.”
DeMayo has been sharing details on a number of Marvel projects that he was once part of. This includes the problematic upcoming reboot of Blade. As he detailed in posts on X/Twitter, he had a simple – and relatively cheap – suggestion for how to make Blade a success.
“Take a John Wick movie. Give mobsters fangs. Swap Keanu for Ali, hand him a sword, not a daughter who makes him fret over swinging the hero’s name. Wick cost 20 mill to make. Add 10 mill for vampire/Darkhold magic VFX, you have 30-40 mill Marvel movie.”
DeMayo then continued to explain one of the three draft treatments he produced for Blade, all of which seemed to have been declined by what he called ‘broken’ Marvel Studios. He said:
” I don’t get why it’s been so hard. Studio’s broken. I wrote 3 drafts and a dozen outlines in 3 impossible months, my fav was a “The Raid”-style treatment where Blade finds himself defending a rundown tenement of humans from Varney’s vamp hordes until daylight. Took place over one night Blade learns from tenant Jericho Drumm that Varney’s attacking b/c the female tenant who Blade sorta fancies has been magically impregnated with Lilith by tenants who’re secretly Darkhold Cultists. Think 30 Days of Night meets Rosemary’s Baby.”
Blade Has Lost Many Writer/Director Combos
The production of Blade has been one of the most notorious in recent Marvel history. The movie was originally planned to have been released by now, but after scrapping its original script for being too boring, and subsequently going through numerous directors and writers, the film just can’t seem to get a handle on what kind of movie it wants to be and what story it wants to tell.
Currently, Mahershala Ali is still attached to star as the titular Daywalker, but with the film having so many changes and issues, it is not surprising there have been reports that he has been ready to walk away on more than one occasion. Originally, the movie was set to be a PG-13 MCU offering, before pivoting to an R-rated movie last year. However, there has still been little movement on the production of the film, although Marvel boss Kevin Feige did provide some insight into why the movie had been delayed back in July, saying:
I think for the last few years, we’ve been trying to crack that movie. The most important thing for us is not rushing it and making sure we are making the right Blade movie.
It seems that there have been many attempts to nail down the tone and story for Blade’s MCU debut, and while the problems have even drawn mocking from original Blade star Wesley Snipes –who added to the movie’s challenges by making a brilliant return to the character in Deadpool & Wolverine – taking time to get the film right will hopefully pay off in the long run.