Two-time Oscar winner Mahershala Ali has officially moved on from Marvel’s long-gestating plans for a Blade reboot, and he thinks that if the studio wanted to make it, they would have.
In an interview with Derek Lawrence for GQ, Ali opened up about his disappointment about the long-winded development of the project, which was announced in 2019 with him attached to star in the titular role.
“If they wanted to do it, we would’ve done it,” said Ali, who only appeared as Blade in a voice-only post-credit scene for Eternals. Ever since an Ali-starring Blade was announced, it has faced countless setbacks, including the departure of multiple directors, cast, and the two Hollywood strikes of 2023.
“For whatever reason, that project is not for me,” he shared. “So I have to move on, and I have moved on. … 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. … 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.”
Director Bassam Tariq was initially attached to direct the film, but he departed the project, and later pursued work on Your Mother Your Mother Your Mother, for which he recruited Ali for the lead role of a Texas hitman who is a devout Muslim.
“I didn't feel great about the fact that things finished the way that they did [with Blade]; I like seeing things through,” Ali said. “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 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.”
Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige made headlines earlier this month after he admitted he felt like a failure for not getting the project off the ground.
“I am feeling like a gigantic loser and failure that we didn’t get off the ground with Mahershala,” said Feige on the Happy Sad Confused podcast. “I am feeling like a gigantic loser and failure that we didn’t get off the ground with Mahershala.”
Tariq exited Blade just weeks before production was scheduled to begin in 2022, and then it was later reported that Yann Demange would direct, also later leaving the project in 2024. The script also went through multiple writers, including Stacy Osei-Kuffour and Michael Starrbury, and Variety reported that as many as five writers have had a crack at the script.
