Yann Demange, who directed the movie White Boy Rick and the first episode of HBO’s Lovecraft Country, has signed on to direct Blade for Marvel Studios.
Two-time Oscar winner Mahershala Ali is set to star in the film, which will be produced by Marvel’s Kevin Feige. The two men recently tapped Emmy-nominated writer Michael Starrbury to pen a brand new script, as Ali was said to have been unhappy with the prior draft, which Bassam Tariq had been attached to direct.
While Demange’s Blade won’t be quite as dark as past movies that starred Wesley Snipes as the vampire slayer, the genre film is expected to be far darker than your average Marvel movie. That certainly sounds like a good thing to me!
RELATED: Marvel Delays Blade, Deadpool 3, Fantastic Four Reboot and Avengers: Secret Wars
While Blade had been barreling towards a November start of production, Marvel decided to press pause in September, as sources say that Ali wasn’t a fan of the script. Blade is now slated to hit theaters on Sept. 6, 2024, with production expected to start in the first half of 2023 in Atlanta.
Demange broke out directing the Jack O’Connell movie ’71, and he’s currently developing a Scanners series for HBO. As for Starrbury, he earned an Emmy nomination for writing an episode of Netflix’s excellent limited series When They See Us, and he also recently served as an executive producer on the streamer’s Colin Kaepernick series Colin in Black & White.
CAA represents Demange and Starrbury, the latter of whom is managed by Circle of Confusion. Deadline broke the news.
