Stacy Osei-Kuffour will pen the script for Marvel's upcoming Blade movie, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
Osei-Kuffour previously worked as a screenwriter on HBO's critically acclaimed Watchmen series and she will be the first Black woman to write a screenplay for Marvel. This is big news – it's the first major update on the movie that we've had since it was announced at San Diego Comic-Con back in 2019.
Mahershala Ali will play the vampire hunter made famous by Wesley Snipes, who played the character in a trilogy of movies in the late '90s and early '00s. The first movie was released in 1998 and was an R-rated blood-and-guts fest – a far cry from the family-friendly output of the MCU. However, with Ryan Reynolds' foul-mouthed antihero Deadpool now part of the MCU, it looks like this may be the start of more R-rated content from the studio.
Ali was reportedly directly involved with the search for a writer, with only Black writers being seriously considered for the role. The project doesn't currently have a director attached to it.
Osei-Kuffour seems like a strong choice. She's an accomplished screenwriter and was nominated for an Emmy for her work on Hulu comedy series Pen15. She's also worked on Amazon Prime's Hunters, starring Logan Lerman and Al Pacino as Nazi hunters in '70s New York, and HBO's crime thriller Run with Domnhall Gleeson.
