Marvel Animation's upcoming What If...? spin-off, Marvel Zombies, will introduce a very unique Multiversal Variant in Blade Knight. The Daywalker has somehow inherited the Moon Knight mantle from Marc Spector, and the expectation had been that Mahershala Ali would voice the character.
Well, ComicBook.com has confirmed that Todd Williams (The Chicago Code) will play Blade Knight. Interestingly, he previously replaced Ali as the voice of Titan in Prime Video's animated Invincible TV series.
While Ali had a brief voice cameo in 2021's Eternals, the Daywalker's solo movie remains stuck in limbo after being announced at Comic-Con over six years ago. We'd imagine the intention was for us to have already met the Oscar-winner's Blade by the time Marvel Zombies aired, though it's no longer clear whether Ali was ever set to reprise the role in this series.
If the Blade movie fails to materialise, then Ali's MCU work could boil down to Eternals' confusing, unresolved post-credits scene. However, our latest update on the long-delayed reboot was a largely positive one.
"We didn’t want to simply just put a leather outfit on [Ali] and have him start killing vampires," Marvel Studios President Kevin Feige recently said of why scripts by Michael Starrbury, Nic Pizzolatto, Michael Green, and more didn't get in front of cameras. "It had to be unique and it fell right into the time when we started pulling back and saying 'only accept insanely great' and it wasn’t insanely great at the time."
"And we didn’t feel like, as we often do, you can start and have a good script and make it a great script through production," he admitted. "We didn’t feel confident that we could that on ‘Blade’ and didn’t want to do that to Mahershala and do want to do that to us."
"There were three or four, two that were period two that are not," the executive added. "We’ve landed on modern day and that’s what we’re focusing on."
In Marvel Zombies, after the Avengers are overtaken by a zombie plague, a desperate group of survivors discover the key to bringing an end to the super-powered undead, racing across a dystopian landscape and risking life and limb to save their world
The show's cast includes Elizabeth Olsen (Scarlet Witch), Awkwafina (Katy), David Harbour (Red Guardian), Simu Liu (Shang-Chi), Randall Park (Jimmy Woo), Florence Pugh (Yelena Belova), Hailee Steinfeld (Hawkeye), Dominique Thorne (Ironheart), Iman Vellani (Ms. Marvel), Hudson Thames (Spider-Man), Paul Rudd (Ant-Man), Wyatt Russell (U.S. Agent), Tessa Thompson (Valkyrie), and Todd Williams (Blade Knight).
Bryan Andrews directs Marvel Zombies from a teleplay by Zeb Wells. Executive Producers include Kevin Feige, Louis D’Esposito, Brad Winderbaum, Dana Vasquez-Eberhardt, Wells, and Andrews. Danielle Costa and Carrie Wassenaar produce.
Marvel Zombies premieres on Disney+ on September 24.