Following director Bassam Tariq’s departure from the project, it now seems that production on Marvel Studios’ Blade is unsurprisingly going to be delayed. Tariq’s departure leaves the project, which has already faced several delays, without either of the members of the original creative team now that Beau DeMayo has taken over script duties from Stacy Osei-Kuffour. With so many major shifts occurring in such a short span of time, Marvel Studios has made the wise choice to delay the start of the project but will continue pre-production work on the script.
Just when principal photography on Blade may get underway is still in question and will likely remain that way for some time until Marvel can lock down a director. Following news of Tariq’s exit, several outlets and individuals, including Big Screen Leaks, shared news of the expected delay with a target date of early 2023.
Later, Angela Boehm Casting in Ohio, an agency that had been working to find extra for Blade’s shoot in Cleveland, announced that the agency was halting its search for actors until the Spring.
While these reports certainly don’t conflict with one another, they both indicate that the reality is nobody knows exactly when Blade will begin filming. It’s already very likely that the film will be moved from its November 3rd, 2023 slot. Now the focus becomes how soon it will be ready for theaters. With the studio recently moving its February 2024 film, which was just announced yesterday to be Deadpool 3, to September of 2024, a spot has opened up for Blade to land somewhere in the first quarter of 2024. Certainly, none of these things are linked together and are all just a series of unrelated, happy coincidences.
