It’s learned the MCU’s first Blade won’t be Mahershala Ali, as revealed by the voice cast for the upcoming Marvel Animation Marvel Zombies animated series coming to Disney+.
To be fair, the Marvel Zombies Blade is likely a Variant, yet all the other characters are voiced by their respective actors.
Blade is being voiced by Todd Williams, who is known for voicing Titan in the Invincible animated series.
Marvel Zombies voice cast
The Marvel Zombies voice cast features:
- Hailee Steinfeld: Kate Bishop
- Florence Pugh: Yelena Belova
- Elizabeth Olsen: Scarlet Witch / Wanda Maximoff
- David Harbour: Alexei Shostakov / Red Guardian
- Awkwafina: Katy
- Iman Vellani: Kamala Khan / Ms. Marvel
- Randall Park: Jimmy Wu
- Simu Liu: Xu Shang-Chi
- Dominique Thorne: Iron Heart / Riri Williams
- Todd Williams: Blade
First MCU show to get Mature rating
Marvel Zombies is also the first MCU show to get the mature rating. Even Moon Knight is only rated TV-14.
Plot info
The official plot: 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.
Ms. Marvel the center of the show
Blade also won’t be the leader or the center of the show.
Iman Vellani previously revealed Marvel Zombies has Ms. Marvel as the focus character, a character Kevin Feige recently specifically called out for no one watching on Disney+, which Feige said was responsible for the failure of The Marvels.
“We’ve done the whole thing. It was amazing. It was so much fun. And I love—there are a lot of cool characters in the ‘Marvel Zombies’ show. And Kamala is kind of the center of the show. They described it to me, it’s like, ‘She’s basically the Frodo of the story.’ And I was like, ‘That’s amazing,’” Vellani said in an interview back in 2023.
Release info
Marvel has also chosen to dump all four episodes on Disney+ at the same time. Marvel Zombies gets released on Disney+ on September 24, 2025.
Bryan Andrew is the director. Comic book writer Zeb Wells is behind the teleplay. The story is also by Bryan Andrews and Zeb Wells. Executive producers include Kevin Feige, Louis D’Esposito, Brad Winderbaum, Dana VasquezEberhardt, Zeb Wells, and Bryan Andrews. Producers are Danielle Costa, and Carrie Wassenaar.
What’s next for Blade?
Mahershala Ali’s Blade future isn’t bright for the MCU. Recently, Feige made outlandish comments about how they don’t want Blade to be about Blade killing vampires. Ali is also said to have been against a version that featured magic as part of the plot. It also sounds like he has no idea what’s going on.
Feige has now claimed they ditched the previous version of the movie, which was going to be about Blade in the 1930s or so (there is the theory that became Sinners), and that it’s getting reworked to be set in modern times.
The project was first announced back at the 2019 Comic-Con, if it happens after Secret Wars, it will be nearly ten years since the announcement. Could even be longer, again, if Blade ever happens.
