Marvel's Blade Reboot: William Catlett Emerges as New Contender

There have been many Marvel projects that never saw the light of day, but none sting quite as profoundly as the MCU's Blade reboot. When Marvel first announced that Oscar winner Mahershala Ali would be stepping into the role of everyone's favorite vampire-hunting daywalker, there was huge excitement, especially considering that Blade hasn't gotten his own standalone movie since 2004. Despite a very small voice cameo in a post-credits scene of Eternals, Ali has made it agonizingly clear that he is done waiting to play the character. MCU fans did get a consolation prize with Wesley Snipes reprising his iconic role in Deadpool & Wolverine, but despite his insistence that "There's only ever gonna be one Blade," one can't help but wonder what could have been with the scrapped reboot.

Perhaps Blade will get his time to shine in the MCU one day, bar his multiversal role in Marvel Zombies, but until then, a new contender to potentially replace Wesley Snipes and Mahershala Ali has thrown his hat into the ring. At a recent Q&A screening of the Friday the 13th prequel series Crystal Lake, hosted by Collider's Perri Nemiroff, series creator Bob Caleb Kane and star William Catlett were in attendance to dish on the behind-the-scenes secrets of the new Linda Cardellini-led show. Catlett is already a horror veteran thanks to the vampire flick Abigail, and it doesn't sound like he's ready to stop fighting the blood-sucking menaces just yet. When asked what was on his "horror moviemaking bucket list," Catlett was reluctant to respond, but eventually admitted he "wouldn't mind" playing Blade, which was met with a hugely positive response from both the crowd in attendance and Kane:

"I worked with Wesley [Snipes]. I don't know why they couldn't make it happen, but that’s something I would like to do."

'Crystal Lake' Delivers a Dramatic New Take on the Voorhees Family's Origin Story

Hopefully Catlett's dream of playing Blade comes true, but until then, he faces a totally different kind of threat as the sheriff of a small notorious town known as Crystal Lake in Peacock's new original series. Taking place years before the events of the original 1980 film, Crystal Lake sees Linda Cardellini as a young Pamela Voorhees as she tries to cope with the disappearance and presumed death of her son Jason (Callum Vinson). It's a bold creative shift for the franchise that focuses on the horror saga's most notorious villains rather than its victims, and it's bound to craft a fascinating origin story for everyone's favorite machete-wielding family of serial killers.