Original Blade actor Wesley Snipes recently showed support for Marvel Studios' new Blade, two-time Oscar winner Mahershala Ali.Snipes gave Ali the latest cosign on Twitter, writing, "He will do great" in response to a fan who appeared to throw a bit of shade. The fan in question had posted side-by-side photos of Ali and Snipes as Blade with the caption, "Best of luck to Mahershala Ali who's gonna smash it I'm sure as Blade but he's gonna have a hard time outdoing Wesley Snipes."
Snipes' tweet wasn't the first show of support he's aimed at Ali following his casting in Marvel's upcoming Blade reboot. Snipes said back in February that he was "one thousand percent supportive" of the project. The actor also said he would be open to a cameo, noting, "You never know. Under the right circumstances, I'm open to play with everybody. I know that people associate me with that role."
For his part, Ali recently unpacked what it was like to film his first scene as Blade. "It was scary," Ali recalled. "Because, you know, you're talking before you're filming it. I'm pretty particular about my choices, like most actors, and so having to make some choices -- even with a line, vocally -- this early on, it brought up some very real anxieties. And it made the job real. It's like, 'Okay, this is happening now,' you know, and that's exciting." The scene Ali referenced was actually a voiceover, which appeared in the post-credits scene of Eternals.
Created by Marv Wolfman and Gene Colan, Eric Brooks/Blade first appeared in 1973's The Tomb of Dracula #10. Snipes portrayed the infamous daywalker in Blade (1998), Blade II (2002) and Blade: Trinity (2004).
While plot details for the Blade reboot have been kept under wraps, Blade director Bassam Tariq previously teased the new film will capture a different version of the Marvel hero. "What's exciting about the film that we're making is [there] hasn't been a canon for Blade, as we're reading through the comics and everything," Tariq shared in September. "Him being a daywalker is the one thing that's been established, and you know we can't deny what Wesley Snipes did, which was he basically got this whole ball rolling."
The release date for Marvel's standalone Blade film has yet to be revealed, but a now-deleted tweet from the official Marvel India Twitter account initially listed it as Oct. 7, 2022. It's also been rumored that Ali's Blade may appear in Marvel's upcoming Moon Knight show on Disney+, which is expected to premiere in 2022.
Source: Twitter