The Oscar-winning actor has reflected on Marvel Studios’ abandoned superhero reboot, explaining how its cancellation paved the way for a new collaboration with the film’s original director.
Mahershala Ali feels “creatively redeemed” after Marvel Studios’ long-abandoned Blade reboot collapsed.
The 52-year-old two-time Oscar winner was unveiled as Marvel’s new Blade during a surprise appearance alongside Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige at San Diego Comic-Con in 2019 – but despite years of development, multiple rewrites and the appointments of directors Bassam Tariq, and later Yann Demange, the film never entered production.
Instead, Mahershala has reunited with Bassam on Amazon MGM Studios’ action film Your Mother Your Mother Your Mother, due for release this autumn.
Speaking to GQ, Mahershala 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.”
Mahershala is best known for his Academy Award-winning performances in Moonlight and Green Book, as well as television roles in House of Cards, True Detective and Marvel’s Luke Cage.
Although he was announced as the MCU’s Blade seven years ago, he never appeared on screen as the vampire hunter in live action, with the project repeatedly delayed before eventually being shelved.
Last week, Kevin also reflected publicly on the failure to bring the film to cinemas, telling the Happy Sad Confused podcast that Marvel had refused to compromise on quality.
He added: “I am feeling like a gigantic loser and failure that we didn’t get off the ground with Mahershala.
“We didn’t want to simply just put a leather outfit on him and have him start killing vampires. It had to be unique. It fell into the time when we started pulling back and saying, ‘Only accept insanely great’.
“And it wasn’t ‘insanely great’ at the time.
“We didn’t feel like, as we often do, you can have a good script and make it a great script through production. 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.”
Mahershala said he has now accepted Blade was never meant to happen.
He added: “When I look at what is for me, is it was either this or that – and I’ll take this. 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.
“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.”
The comments come just days after Marvel’s latest Hall H presentation at Comic-Con, where Kevin announced Ryan Gosling as Ghost Rider and revealed Alien: Romulus star David Jonsson as the new Black Panther in Black Panther 3, as the studio continues reshaping its future slate after recent box office disappointments including Captain America: Brave New World and The Fantastic Four: First Steps.
Meanwhile, Spider-Man: Brand New Day has opened to record-breaking figures, providing a boost for Marvel’s wider cinematic universe.
Mahershala Ali says Blade collapse left him feeling ‘creatively redeemed’
