Mahershala Ali has confirmed his Blade movie is dead and he has officially moved on from the troubled Marvel project.
In an interview with GQ, Ali said that if Marvel Studios ever does get around to making a Blade movie, it won’t be with him.
“The best way I can answer this question is, when I look at what is for me, is it was either this or that — and I’ll take this,” Ali said, referencing his new movie, Your Mother Your Mother Your Mother.
“No offense to them. I’ve been doing this professionally for pushing 30 years now, and one thing I’ve learned is that what is for you is for you and what is not is not. For whatever reason, that project is not for me. If they wanted to do it, we would’ve done it. So I have to move on, and I have moved on. Your Mother Your Mother Your Mother feels very much in alignment with the type of work I want to be known for. I don’t really want to be known for remakes. I’d love to do original work that resonates with people and impacts them in unique ways.”
“So, I’m good,” he continued, laughing. “Again, you had me under contract, they have billions of dollars, if they wanted to do the movie, we would’ve done the movie. So we’re not doing the movie. When I look at this and Blade, I couldn’t have done both, and the reason this even exists is because that project fell apart and Bassam [Tariq, director who was helming Blade before stepping down in 2022] had the time, space, energy, and focus to go and write this and then re-approach me.
“And I was able to use those skills that I had been working on for over a year training for Blade. In that way, I feel creatively redeemed on some level, just in my own journey between me, myself, and I. But I feel ready to move on from the Blade questions. Those questions are for them. They didn’t want to do it, so they should answer that question.”
Earlier this month, Marvel Studios boss Kevin Feige admitted he felt like a “gigantic loser and failure” over the collapse of Ali’s Blade reboot. Marvel announced it was making Blade back in 2019 at San Diego Comic-Con, and confirmed that Ali would feature as a new version of its vampire hunter, previously played by Wesley Snipes. But, seven years later, the project is dead in the water, despite the apparent enthusiasm from Ali to make it.
“We’ve landed on modern day,” Feige said in an interview last summer, acknowledging that Blade’s script had gone through “three or four” different incarnations, two of which were period pieces. “We didn’t feel like, as we often do, you can have a good script and make it a great script through production,” Feige continued, discussing why the project had been pushed back. “We didn’t feel confident that we could do that on Blade, and we didn’t want to do that to Mahershala and didn’t want to do that to us.”
In December, Mia Goth said she got a wig to wear for the 1920s Blade movie idea, before the setting was scrapped and the project was placed on hiatus. “The furthest that it got with me was… I flew to Atlanta and did a chemistry test with Mahershala,” Goth said, speaking on the Josh Horowitz podcast. “I did a costume fitting and a wig fitting. I was very excited in the direction it was going and Mahershala had such an interesting take on it, he was great. And it just unravelled from there, unfortunately.”
Alongside Mia Goth’s wig, fans know that a full wardrobe of clothes was made for the film’s supporting artists, which were ultimately sold on. Bizarrely, these ended up being used in another period vampire movie, Ryan Coogler’s acclaimed Sinners.
Meanwhile, Wesley Snipes reprised his role for a cameo in Deadpool & Wolverine. Deadpool actor Ryan Reynolds has said he wants Snipes’ classic Marvel movie hero to get a send-off film akin to Hugh Jackman’s Logan.
In 2024, Snipes poked fun at the MIA film after news surfaced that director Yann Demange had reportedly exited the project. “Blade, lordylordylordy folks still lookin for the secret sauce, ridin snowmobiles in traffic, kinda rough,” Snipes said. “Daywalkers make it look easy, don’t they?”
And in May last year, David S. Goyer, who wrote all three movies in the original Blade trilogy and even directed 2004’s Blade: Trinity, wondered what was taking so long.
“I would,” Goyer responded when asked if he’d write Marvel’s Blade reboot. “I’ve always loved the character and I love him. I’ve been sitting on the sidelines wondering, ‘What in the world is going on? Why is it taking so long?’ Because I’m a huge Marvel fan myself, and I’ve just been totally puzzled.”
The question now is, will Marvel Studios find a replacement for Ali and push forward with a new take on Blade, or give up entirely? With Ryan Gosling confirmed to be playing Ghost Rider in a new MCU movie set for release in 2028, some believe Marvel Studios is setting up the introduction of the Midnight Sons, which would potentially open the door for Blade.
Photo by Albert L. Ortega/Getty Images.
Wesley is Director, News at IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at [email protected] or confidentially at [email protected].
