Oscar Isaac Hints Midnight Sons Is in Early Development After Blade Stalls

Oscar Isaac, Marvel's Moon Knight, seemingly confirmed in a podcast interview that a Midnight Sons movie is at least in the earliest phases of pre-development and that there have been discussions about it. The news came out quietly, swept up in all the Spider-Man and Avengers: Doomsday news at the time, and it arrived after at least two industry insiders had weighed in to seemingly confirm that Mahershala Ali's Blade was no longer in development at Marvel Studios.

Later in this piece, I'll also get to my theory about who may really have kept a bad Blade movie from being made.

Blade's long struggle at Marvel Studios ended with its costumes in Sinners

If you've followed Marvel coverage over the last three years, you'll know there probably wasn't a bigger display of the failures behind the scenes at Marvel Studios than what went on with Mahershala Ali and the Blade franchise. It was director after director, writer after writer. They could not get out of their own way when it came to that film.

Then, on the back of the release of Sinners, we learned that a lot of the costumes that made it into that film were purchased by Ryan Coogler and his team directly from Marvel Studios. To me, that signaled Marvel was done at least with that 1920s iteration of Blade, and probably thank God. It also signaled that they were probably done with the franchise completely.

Since then, at least two industry insiders weighed in and seemingly confirmed that Blade was no longer in development and was canceled. As a reminder, though, Marvel Studios had not officially confirmed that Blade was canceled for good. It was just every other source in the industry that had.

Daniel RPK reported Marvel may make Midnight Sons instead

There was a consolation. Alongside that news came word from Daniel RPK that Marvel may be doing a Midnight Sons movie instead. We hadn't heard anything officially about it until Oscar Isaac spoke up.

What wasn't included in the cancellation news was any report that Mahershala Ali was walking away from the role of Blade. Keep in mind, he's been in the live action MCU, at least as a voiceover in the post credits scene of Eternals, alongside another character we may never see again, Kit Harington's Black Knight.

Oscar Isaac says a Midnight Sons tone had to be real

In his podcast interview, Oscar Isaac talked about that film and returning as Moon Knight there, as opposed to in a second season. He said the tone had to be what he called real. He was saying this in contrast with some of the silliness that came into play in the first season of Moon Knight.

In what I think is a very seldom thing now, an actor actually showing knowledge of the comic characters and stories he's playing, he acknowledged that the tone needed to be real because Midnight Sons is a serious story. Basically, if Moon Knight were to return for a Midnight Sons team, the tone of that movie would be different from what we saw in the Moon Knight show. Bravo, Oscar Isaac. That is exactly right.

To be fair, there was some joking going on too, with talk about Ryan Gosling playing Ghost Rider and Isaac riding on the back of Gosling's bike. But he at least knows that if they make a Midnight Sons movie, it needs to be a dark, gritty, supernatural movie in the tone of what really should have kicked off that universe, Werewolf by Night.

Werewolf by Night set up a supernatural Midnight Sons team

While it's exciting to hear that discussions have been had and that they're working toward a way to make this film, the questions really shouldn't be asked. They were setting this up during the Multiverse Saga, and multiple industry insiders have said the next saga won't just be about mutants but will also delve into the cosmic and the supernatural.

This all starts with Werewolf by Night and the tone that would begin the makeup of the Midnight Sons. When I interviewed the actress who plays Elsa Bloodstone around the time of Werewolf by Night, she admitted that's the team she would like to see. You can assume her, Werewolf by Night, Man-Thing, then Ghost Rider, Moon Knight, Blade, and possibly a couple of other characters all coming together in a supernatural setting.

I've also said this is where I would love to see Punisher end up, only because it most likely should be rated R and gory. That's a great outing for his character, and very seldom do you get to see Punisher in a supernatural setting the way he has been sometimes in the comics. In my humble opinion, that's sometimes when Frank Castle is at his best.

Mahershala Ali may be the one who stopped a bad Blade movie

Here's the real question: is a Midnight Sons movie with Mahershala Ali's Blade a consolation for not getting a Blade movie? The only person that really matters to is Mahershala Ali himself. On both the TV and film side, some projects were overhyped and under delivered, and others could have been outstanding but were watered down or completely massacred by movie by committee, in editing or during shooting, like the 20 some odd rewrites on Multiverse of Madness. As I've said in the past, it's a miracle how good that film is in spite of that, a testament to Michael Waldron's writing.

I think this will eventually come out, because the story hasn't played itself out yet. Mahershala Ali hadn't left the role, so he couldn't talk about it in the rearview mirror. I think it will be revealed that he was probably the one who did not allow Marvel Studios to go forward with a substandard script or a substandard film. He's probably the one who, while patiently waiting for Marvel to deliver on its promise from 2019 that he would play Blade, said the scripts coming his way weren't good enough and held out for something better.

Midnight Sons might not be the Blade movie he thought he was going to star in, but it's better that they didn't make a terrible Blade movie that undoubtedly would have been held up against the Wesley Snipes films. At least the first two in that trilogy absolutely hold up. They're classics, just as gory and fun as they were the first time. A movie that didn't measure up would have been panned, a worst case scenario.

From the outside, it may be easy to say Mahershala Ali isn't getting a fair shake and is being shoved into a Midnight Sons movie instead of his own. But it may be Ali himself who stopped a bad Blade movie from getting made, saved himself from having to star in it, and is the one we should be thanking if that film wasn't good.

Who would you want to see on a Midnight Sons team?