Mahershala Ali backs Kevin Feige on scrapped Blade reboot
Mahershala Ali agrees with Marvel boss Kevin Feige that the studio's scrapped Blade reboot was a failure.
Ali said he agrees "one hundred percent" with Feige's description of the collapsed project as Feige's biggest career disappointment, in reporting by The Hollywood Reporter on 23 September 2026. Feige had said in July on the Happy Sad Confused podcast that he feels "like a gigantic loser and failure" that the film never got off the ground.
The project began with loud promise. Ali was announced to star in a new version of Blade, the Marvel vampire hunter, at Comic-Con in 2019.
Then came the calendar shuffle. Marvel Studios pushed Blade from 3 November 2023 to 6 September 2024 as part of a wider change to its release slate, according to Variety. It was later pushed again, nine months from 14 February 2025 to 7 November, according to The Hollywood Reporter. Reporting at the time linked the reboot's troubles to industry strikes and a changing studio strategy.
Ali confirmed in a July interview with GQ that he would not lead Blade after all. That interview forms the basis of the latest reporting.
The wait carried a personal cost. Ali said he spent a year training for the role and blew his knee out while Marvel kept pushing the film back. He also said he uprooted his family and moved to Atlanta while waiting for production to start.
Bassam Tariq was attached to direct the reboot. After Blade stalled, Ali reunited with Tariq on a different film, Your Mother Your Mother Your Mother.
Feige also said Marvel was "very excited" to bring back Wesley Snipes, the star of the original Blade films, for an appearance in 2024's Deadpool & Wolverine. That cameo gave fans a familiar face while the reboot stayed stuck.
What makes this stand out is how open both men are. You realise how rare it is for a studio chief to use language like loser and failure about his own slate. Ali does not argue. He nods, describes the training and the move, and moves on to the next project.
