Mahershala Ali Slams Marvel Over ‘Blade’ Being in Limbo

Whatever happened to Marvel’s Blade? It’s a question fans have been asking for years, and now Mahershala Ali has a rather pointed answer about why the long-awaited MCU movie still hasn’t happened.

Back in 2019, in front of a roaring crowd in Hall H at San Diego Comic-Con, Kevin Feige pulled Oscar winner Ali on stage to announce that Marvel’s infamous half-mortal, half-bloodsucker vampire hunter, Blade, would make his resurrection in the MCU. Originally set to be directed by Bassam Tariq and starring Ali as the titular Daywalker, the highly anticipated reboot seemed poised to bring one of Marvel’s darkest heroes back to the big screen.

Then, two years later, Blade was teased to audiences with a voice-only cameo in the post-credit scene for Marvel’s Eternals.

And since then, radio silence. Despite years of development, Ali never got to properly step into the role. Now, he’s speaking rather candidly about the wait as few Marvel projects have spent as much time in limbo as Blade.

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“If they wanted to do it, we would’ve done it,” he told GQ. “I didn’t feel great about the fact that things finished the way that they did [with Blade]; I like seeing things through,” Ali told the publication. “I was really attracted to the challenge of playing a character that felt so stretched, but also the intimacy of his situation and the potential care he would take in executing his mission. All TV and films are hard, and I just want it to be difficult for the right reasons, and it felt like this was going to be that. I’m so grateful that we were able to see this through and find what I believe is the right thing together.”

According to Variety, Tariq departed the project in 2022, two months before production was set to start, setting back the original release date of November 3, 2023.

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In an interview with Tariq about their current project Your Mother Your Mother Your Mother, Ali was asked by GQ about the status of Blade and his thoughts on the long-delayed project, to which Ali answered: “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. 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 then added, “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 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.”

Ali isn’t the only Marvel star to see a project unexpectedly fall apart. On Thursday, July 30, Disney+ canceled Wonder Man despite the series already being renewed for a second season, and star Yahya Abdul-Mateen II‘s Emmy nomination for his work on the show.