Mahershala Ali agrees with Kevin Feige over unmade Blade
Mahershala Ali says Marvel chief Kevin Feige is right to call the unmade Blade his biggest failure.
“I agree with him. I agree with him. 100%. 100%,” Ali said in a GQ interview published on 22 September, according to Variety. The conversation was published by GQ and centres on why the vampire hunter film never reached cameras.
Ali said he does not know why Marvel never put Blade into production. He put the question bluntly. How does a studio with billions of dollars and a two-time Oscar-winning actor under contract fail to make the film, he asked, as reported by Variety on 22 September.
His remarks answer Feige directly. Feige told the Happy Sad Confused podcast that he felt “like a gigantic loser and failure” for not getting a Blade film off the ground with Ali, according to Deadline. A clip of that July interview was later posted by the podcast’s TikTok account under the title “Kevin Feige feels like a loser and a failure over Blade”.
The project has a long public history. Marvel announced a Blade reboot — a fresh start for a character seen on screen before — with Ali in the role in July 2019 at Comic-Con, the large fan gathering in San Diego where studios present future plans, according to Variety on 22 September. The film then failed to go into production after numerous starts and stops, as reported by Variety on 20 August.
The stops are well documented. Bassam Tariq was the first director to join and exited in September 2022. Yann Demange followed him and dropped out in June 2024. The script passed through at least five writers, from Stacy Osei-Kuffour to Michael Starrbury, according to Variety on 22 September.
Feige offered his own explanation in July 2025. He said the delays were a symptom of Marvel’s over-expansion into Disney+ series, when the demand for quantity overtook quality. The studio had stretched its teams across cinema releases and streaming shows.
For fans, this means the two central figures are now telling the same story from opposite sides of the table. One says he feels he failed the actor. The other says he agrees, and still wants to know why.
