“Infinity Pool” actress Mia Goth has joined the cast of Mahershala Ali’s “Blade,” according to an insider with knowledge of the project.
Yann Demange, a French-Algerian filmmaker whose previous credits include Jack O’Connell’s “71” and Matthew McConaughey’s “White Boy Rick,” is attached to direct the vampire-killing actioner.
Michael Starrbury, who has penned episodes of Netflix and Ava DuVernay’s “When They See Us” and “Colin in Black and White,” wrote the latest draft of the screenplay.
Assuming all goes well from here, production will begin in Atlanta in early 2023. While the film will reportedly be darker than a stereotypical Marvel romp, the extent this film will straddle the line between the safely PG-13 MCU entries and New Line Cinema’s original hard-R trilogy with Wesley Snipes remains to be seen.
When Stephen Norrington’s “Blade” debuted in 1998, it was mostly sold and generally embraced (good reviews, solid buzz and $131 million worldwide on a $45 million budget) as an R-rated, martial-arts infused Snipes vehicle that just happened to be based on a Marvel comic book. While the film is credited with being Marvel’s first major theatrical success (following whiffs like “The Punisher” in 1989 and “Howard the Duck” in 1986), it was positioned as a star-driven genre flick first and a comic book adaptation second.
It spawned two sequels, Guillermo del Toro’s well-received “Blade II” ($155 million on a $55 million budget weeks before Sam Raimi’s “Spider-Man’ swung into the record books in 2002) and David Goyer’s less-beloved “Blade: Trinity” ($132 million on a $62 million budget) in 2004. A loosely connected one-season television show starring Kirk Jones as Blade ran on SpikeTV in 2006.
Goth is repped by WME, Curtis Brown Group and Storm Artists Management.
Deadline first reported the news.
Marvel had no comment.
