Mahershala Ali Confirms He’s No Longer Playing Blade for Marvel Studios

It looks like Mahershala Ali is now officially out of the planned theatrical reboot of Blade. The Oscar-winning actor confirmed the development during a recent interview with GQ, where he criticized Marvel Studios for dropping the ball on the planned MCU reboot.

Speaking on the matter, Ali stated, “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.” He continued, “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 … 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 … 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 first announced the planned reboot during the San Diego Comic-Con in 2019, seven years ago. The project went through many starts and stops, including rewrites and multiple director changes. Original director Bassam Tariq exited the project due to creative differences, right before filming was set to begin, several years ago.

Yann Demange came onboard as the new director. However, the production once again underwent a delay due to the WGA strike in 2023. Demange would end up leaving the project in 2024, and it continued to stall. It was reported later that year that Marvel Studios took the movie off of its release calendar.

Marvel’s Blade Reboot Loses Mahershala Ali

During a recent appearance on the Happy Sad Confused podcast, Marvel Studios President Kevin Feige expressed shame over failing to make the Blade movie. He explained, “I am feeling like a gigantic loser and failure that we didn’t get off the ground with Mahershala.”

Wesley Snipes, who starred in the original big-screen adaptation of Marvel’s vampire hunter in the 1998 Blade movie, reprised the iconic role in 2024 in Deadpool & Wolverine. The movie even playfully referenced the reboot talk when the character says, “There’s only been one Blade. There’s only ever gonna be one Blade,” while Deadpool (Ryan Reynolds) then playfully looks at the camera.

Mahershala Ali did end up collaborating with the Blade reboot’s original director, Tariq, on a new movie, the action-thriller Your Mother Your Mother Your Mother. Ali portrays a widower single father who is also a hitman in the upcoming feature. It arrives in theaters from Amazon MGM Studios on September 25.