How hard can it be to make a Blade movie? Score a director with some horror and action experience, invest in long leather coats, put a bunch of stuntpeople in vampire costumes, stick on some pumping dance music, and *bam* box office gold. But, sadly, it seems even the relatively well-oiled production pipeline that is Marvel Studios couldn’t make this simple proposition work. In 2019, Mahershala Ali was unveiled as the MCU’s Daywalker to great fanfare, but (save for a tiny voiceover cameo in an Eternals credits scene) that was it. Blade then remained trapped in development hell, losing its original director Bassam Tariq, having its production start date repeatedly pushed back, several total script rewrites, and was severely affected by the Hollywood strikes. Marvel Studios came tantalizingly close to getting production started, going so far as to build sets and produce costumes, but canceled plans at the last minute. This appears to have been for the rumored 1920s-set script. Now, thanks to an interview with Ironheart producer Sev Ohanian, it turns out we’ve already gotten a good look at the hard work Marvel put into Blade… and we all missed it. It’s a sin Ohanian also produced the smash-hit Ryan Coogler movie Sinners, and during an interview with the ScreenCrush podcast, casually mentioned that Sinners has a direct link with the canceled Blade: “Shout out to Marvel Studios. Ruth Carter was working on the Blade movie that ended up not shooting. … At one point, that film was going to deal with the past around the same era. She happened to have a warehouse full of period-appropriate clothes and it was like, “Yo, we got to shoot this movie like tomorrow.” And Marvel was generous enough and kind enough to let us basically purchase it at price, and a lot of the background actors in our movie are wearing those clothes. So, special shout out to Marvel for making that happen.” Extremely cool development, and we’re impressed that Marvel Studios were kind enough to give Sinners a good deal. But, with Ryan Coogler making them two mega-hit movies with more in the pipeline, it makes sense to keep him on side. Sinners was such a hit that it seems destined to spawn sequels, so expect to see more that franchise soon. As for Blade? Well, with Mahershala Ali now 51 he’s rapidly aging out of the role so don’t expect to see him as the daywalker anytime soon. Perhaps one day we will get an MCU Blade, but we anticipate it being a total top-to-bottom new production that starts from scratch.