Mahershala Ali breaks down his debut as Blade

Caution: This post contains SPOILERS for Eternals

Marvel never makes a movie that doesn’t set up another movie, and its latest venture Eternals was no exception. In the mid-credits scene, mild-mannered museum employee Dane Whitman (Kit Harington) toys with the idea of picking up the Ebony Blade, a historical weapon with a grave curse laid upon it. To his shock (and ours) he hears a voice advising him against going any further.

And not just any voice: it’s the voice of Oscar winner Mahershala Ali, who will be entering the Marvel Cinematic Universe as the vampire-hunting vampire Blade. How exactly is Blade tied to Whitman and the Ebony Blade? We’re not sure, but Ali was psyched to get to debut his performance, even if it felt a little premature.

“It was really cool, getting to do that,” Ali told Empire. “It was scary. Because, you know, you’re talking before you’re filming it. I’m pretty particular about my choices, like most actors, and so having to make some choices – even with a line, vocally – this early on, it brought up some very real anxieties. And it made the job real. It’s like, ‘Okay, this is happening now’, you know, and that’s exciting.”

"That Marvel world is obviously the biggest in film, and just to get my little introduction to that – starting with the Comic Con a couple years ago, and now the very early stages of stepping into the shoes of that character – it felt special and really cool. I’m excited to get going and do more."

And we’re excited to see him on at! We’ll have to wait a while, though; the Blade movie doesn’t have a release date yet.

Sam Wilson will be a different kind of Captain America

But at least the Blade movie is further along than Captain America 4, which will feature Anthony Mackie’s Sam Wilson stepping into the role previously occupied by Steve Rogers (Chris Evans).

But while they share the same title, Sam is not Steve, as Marvel producer Nate Moore laid out on ComicBook.com’s Phase Zero podcast. “He’s not Steve Rogers and I think that’s a good thing because, to me, this new Cap is Rocky,” Moore said.

"He’s gonna be the underdog in any situation. He’s not a super-soldier, he’s not a 100-years-old [and] he doesn’t have the Avengers. What happens with this guy who announces publicly — kind of without support — ‘I’m the new Captain America.’ What happens next, I think, is fascinating because he’s a guy. He’s the guy with wings and shield, but he is a guy, so we’re gonna put him through the wringer and make him earn it and see what happens when he is outweighed, outclassed, out-everything-ed. What makes somebody Captain America? Because I’m gonna argue it’s not being a super-soldier and I think we’re gonna prove that with Mackie and Sam Wilson."

Expect Captain America 4 in…2023?

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h/t SyFy Wire