‘Blade’ Recruits ‘True Detective’ Creator Nic Pizzolatto To Punch Up Script
Marvel Studios’ upcoming Blade reboot, which Mahershala Ali is starring in, has hired Nic Pizzolatto to punch up the most recent draft of the script, as filming start approaches.
It’s been a bumpy road for Kevin Feige and the Marvel team. Everything seemed to be in place for a fall shooting date, but the house was actually on fire, and in late September, Marvel decided to switch directions for the movie. The script was trashed, and the director departed the project, with Yann Demange being hired shortly after to helm, and Michael Starrbury tapped to pen the script. Feige was apparently heavily involved from that point on, and according to The Hollywood Reporter, he decided to bring in more help, hiring earlier this year True Detective writer/creator Nic Pizzolatto to do some rewrites on what Starrbury had done earlier.
It’s unknown at the moment how this will affect Blade‘s production schedule. The pic was supposed to start shooting late this month, so it’s not exactly encouraging to know that they are still finalizing the script, especially given Marvel’s recent track record of going into production with an uncompleted script just so they can hit their target release date. Things are changing, though, and it’s possible that Pizzolatto’s work on the script is done by now, as the trade suggests he’s been on the job for a few weeks already. The studio has realized some of the issues they are having and is reportedly working on correcting them; one of them is the writers’ problem. (Notice that if the script isn’t finished yet, the upcoming strike, should it happen, could set them back a while, from a few weeks to a few months.)
Pizzolatto is the third high-profile writer that Marvel has hired to do rewrites on the scripts of their upcoming movies in recent months, which is now the definition of a tendency. Avatar 4‘s Josh Friedman was brought on board to punch up the screenplay of Fantastic Four, and Beef creator Lee Sung Jin rewrote pretty much the entire script of Thunderbolts a few months ago; that movie is currently filming. (Speaking of which, Deadpool 3 is meant to start filming today!)
The cast for Blade is also a bit of a mystery. Mia Goth joined the ensemble recently as Lilith, but besides that, it’s unknown how many of the actors that were part of the previous version of the movie will be carried over. The Hollywood Reporter said in the story that Delroy Lindo is still part of the cast, which is definitely good news for the project.
Blade is currently aiming for a September 6, 2024, release date, but we’ve been speculating for a while that it could be bumped to Deadpool 3‘s November 8 date, and if this new script changes will be reflected on a new filming date, that is looking like a more likely scenario every day. (Of course, it’s possible that Pizzolatto is simply working on rewrites of the dialogue, and none of his changes will affect the pre-production process, or have a minimum effect.)
Miguel Fernández is a Spanish student that has movies as his second passion in life. His favorite movie of all time is The Lord of the Rings, but he is also a huge Star Wars fan. However, fantasy movies are not his only cup of tea, as authors like Scorsese, Fincher, Kubrick or Hitchcock have been an obsession for him since he started to understand the language of filmmaking. He is that guy who will watch a black and white movie, just because it is in black and white.
