Blade: Why Jordan Peele Is The Perfect Candidate To Direct
Someone really needs to make this happen.
Jordan Peele has been on record to say that he's keen to work away from big studios while he cuts his teeth as a director, so you wouldn't necessarily think he'd jump at the chance to make an MCU movie, but that doesn't mean Marvel Studios shouldn't break their back to get him. Because he's the stand-out, perfect candidate to direct the upcoming Phase 5 Blade project.
As much as a straight horror movie would be a huge departure for the MCU, Blade wouldn't be the first one. That honour goes to Scott Derrickson's Doctor Strange In The Multiverse Of Madness, which is coming in Phase 4. And Derrickson's tenure within the MCU could map out how Peele could find his place too.
The MCU has a reputation for not allowing directors to fully commit to their own vision. The likes of Kenneth Branagh, James Gunn, Joss Whedon, Ryan Coogler and Taika Waititi - all directors with styles of their own - had to toe a creative line with the company's grand over-arching style. Admittedly, in the wake of Gunn's success, more directors were given greater freedom to put their own stamp on things, but it wouldn't be wrong to suggest that Marvel Studios' ideal director is the same as Pixar's ideal director - someone they can mould into a creative style, rather than a creative style having to be moulded into them.
The good thing for Peele's prospects of directing Blade is that it's a film that can stand apart from the other MCU films in a far more pronounced sort of way. There's not a great deal to compare it to and even with Derrickson's horror work laying the foundation, Blade is a wholly different prospect to a nightmare scape based on weirdness. His film would be about the charisma of the character more than the darkness of the universe, which is exactly the approach Derrickson took to blooding Strange into the MCU.
Instead of going fully into the incredible, mind-bending material of the stranger days of the comics - the best version of Strange, in other words - the version we got was a far more traditional origin story in the MCU vein. Sure, there were new, weird elements pretty early on (as soon as he met The Ancient One), but up to that point, Derrickson wasn't making his movie, he was making Marvel's. His sequel will be his movie more purely. Just as Guardians Of The Galaxy Vol 2 was more of an expression of Gunn. And just as Black Panther 2 and Thor: Love & Thunder will be more tuned to the usual styles of Coogler and Waititi.
So, giving Peele the reigns and asking him to make a Blade movie within the MCU framework, but also giving him the chance to stick with his own style could absolutely work. And who wouldn't want to see his blend of pitch black humour and horror together in that sort of set-up?
Peele has proved himself to be one of the most transgressive horror movie-makers of recent years, partly by crumpling up everyone's expectations of what his horror work will be (even as we had no expectations with Get Out). He blends humour and horror in a way that is both entertaining and deeply unsettling and his work in comedy writing has put him in good stead to write great characters.
The idea of Blade with the charisma of Peele's characters in a world that melds mainstream aesthetics with otherwordly creepiness (which Peele has now done twice to such good success) is just irresistible and Marvel should have him at the very top of their most wanted list to direct.