LOCKE & KEY Director Wants to Helm Marvel’s BLADE Reboot with Mahershala Ali
Mike Sprague
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Marvel’s Blade reboot with Mahershala Ali is on the hunt for writers. And today, House at the End of the Street with Jennifer Lawrence director Mark Tonderai (Locke & Key) has thrown his hat into the ring to helm the flick.
Tonderai tells Comicbookmovie.com: “I’d love to do Blade. Blade, for me, is right up my street in terms of my sensibilities. I also think Stephen Norrington did a brilliant job with the first incarnation, and I’d argue that it was the first, other than Tim Burton’s Batman, superhero film that really revolutionised movies to where we are now. So, Blade, I would absolutely love to do… You want to do a Marvel film because it’s a very different discipline. When you do a project like that, it’s not really a Mark Tonderai film, it’s a Marvel film. So, how do you get your DNA into that?“
And while we’re here, Ali tells Tightrope: “I love that [Blade is] darker. That’s all in terms of tone. He’s a little bit darker than some of the other ones and so that element was attractive to me. I did this Marvel show for Netflix called Luke Cage. So in doing that show, the day it premiered, I had turned to my agent, and I had said, ‘What are they doing with Blade?’ Because I kept hearing they were trying to find a way to remake and put it back together. And it was exciting for me to get to be in that Marvel space and TV, but for me, my goal had always been film. But also being able to participate in television in a very specific way that had real meaning, but my larger goal was to be able to really navigate between film and television. [My desire to play Blade was] married with being so inspired by Wesley Snipes’ work and what he had done. And how much had changed since his iteration of Blade, and how that had really sort of ushered in this era of Marvel and DC, sort of like comic book stuff. Since they were having conversations about bringing it back into being, I just wanted to be considered for it because I had definitely a connection, at least in my mind, to Wesley Snipes going back to high school. People use to joke and say that we looked alike and all this stuff. I just brought it up as someone who really wanted to take on that [Blade] role and tackle that.”
There is no word currently on who they are specifically looking into but a THR article says that they are looking for “Black behind-the-camera talent.”
Would you like to see Tonderai direct Marvel’s Blade? Make sure to let us know what you think in the comments below or on Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram!
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