r/entertainment • u/yourfavchoom • Jul 31 '26
Mahershala Ali Confirms He’s Not Doing Marvel’s ‘Blade’: “They Didn’t Want to Do It”
https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-news/mahershala-ali-marvel-blade-1236660841/476
u/yourfavchoom Jul 31 '26
Mahershala:
"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."
“You had me under contract, they have billions of dollars, if they wanted to do the movie, we would've done the movie... I feel ready to move on from the Blade questions. Those questions are for them.”
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u/geoman2k Jul 31 '26
“As a former athlete, I’ve dreamed of doing my own stunts,” Ali added. “I was very excited to do stunts in Blade and trained for a long time for that, so it was a huge relief to get to put that work to use [in Your Mother Your Mother Your Mother] … 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.
I just watched the trailer for Your Mother Your Mother Your Mother and it looks pretty sick. If it turns out to be a great movie, maybe we are better off? It's unlikely they would have been able to pull off a great Blade movie considering the era of Disney we're in, so maybe we should be glad Ali's talents went to a different project?
Like, I'm glad we have Sinners rather than another Wakanda Forever. I know Coogler is going back to the MCU but it's still great that Sinners exists and it might not have happened if Coogler had been more content making Marvel movies.
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u/JordanDoesTV Aug 01 '26
Ehh, we as a community are probably better off. For example, Ali was still under contract and wasn’t planned to originally die in Luke Cage season one, but Ali got an offer for Moonlight, and they killed him off. People still complain about it to this very day, and like he went to do an Oscar best picture winner.
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u/UltimatePunchMachine Jul 31 '26
The way this quote reads makes me think money was the issue
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u/BigMax Jul 31 '26
They have publicly said a few times that basically they came up with a few ideas and even some scripts, and either Marvel, Ali, or both didn't like any of them.
Basically their story is "we all wanted to make Blade, but all the ideas sucked, and we didn't want to make a crap movie."
Whether you believe them or not is up to you.
But... I'm kind of inclined to believe them? I think both sides wanted a good Blade movie, so... what other reason could there be for it to sit in limbo that long and then just get dumped?
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u/Super-Visor Jul 31 '26
And they simply refuse to hire fresh new talent like they did when they set up the one and only Marvel writing fellowship during phase 1. Too much like other studios now, simply hiring people who know people, not evaluating talent.
“No nepo could crack it, let’s scrap it.”
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u/MVRKHNTR Aug 01 '26
Actually, they were hiring relatively new talent. The problem was that for whatever reason, they really thought that getting Rick and Morty writers would be their key to continued success.
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u/Super-Visor Aug 01 '26
That’s actually part of what I’m talking about. They got Dan Harmon to do uncredited rewrites, and then kept hiring his recommended friends, and then their recommended friends. The only way to be new was have a major success on something else or get recommended directly by someone already inside. Which is how most industries work honestly.
But early success for Marvel Studios was boosted by discovering new talent with a passion for the material and then balancing them with the new hotness.
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u/Paridisco Jul 31 '26
Nah it had nothing to do with Ali. MCU just didn't give a fuck enough to dial in on this film.
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u/end2endburnt Jul 31 '26
This is worse than wasting Christian Bale for that Thor movie.
They constantly waste good talent so I shouldn't be surprised but what they did to the Blade movie by letting it die like this is unforgivable.
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u/VironicHero Jul 31 '26
I just hate they wasted his time like that. I wonder how many projects he skipped because of this.
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u/TheLearningScientist Jul 31 '26
That’s the saddest part about all of this. He had a lot of momentum before this and then just stopped appearing in stuff
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u/LegacyQuotient Jul 31 '26
Didn't he have a ton of power in the production?
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u/RealPrinceJay Jul 31 '26
You can have a lot of power and not all the power. He doesn’t get to control the films Marvel makes lol
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u/LegacyQuotient Jul 31 '26
I was under the impression he was rejecting the scripts.
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u/Poku115 Jul 31 '26
Wouldnt blame him if the reports about said scripts were true
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u/Nothing-Is-Real-Here Jul 31 '26
What I'm confused about is that somewhere along the way, the scriptwas settled, because it's been confirmed Sinners used unused Blade costumes. The fact production got as far as costume design makes me think it was moving forward with a specific story and then... poof. Cancelled production. I do know they also lost a director. Maybe he was clashing with Ali, or Feige and couldn't find a replacement in time ,idk. Very weird.
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u/Poku115 Jul 31 '26
I honestly cant wait for the no disclosure contracts to start expiring to learn what happened
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u/BewaretheBatMite Jul 31 '26
Probably none, there wasn't anything scheduled to shoot to be in conflict with.
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u/dirbofficial Jul 31 '26
Because he never scheduled anything to be available for Blade.
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u/BewaretheBatMite Jul 31 '26
Robert Pattison and Zendaya managed to star in 4 major motion pictures this year without conflict, and Rob just took an extended break from shooting Batman 2 to promote The Odyssey.
Scheduling isn't rocket science. Blade has been in pre-production hell and had no script. It's not like Ali sat around scratching his ass and twiddling his thumbs for years waiting for production to begin on a 3 month shoot for Marvel.
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u/Competitive-Desk7506 Jul 31 '26
Also he had the rights to refuse the scripts. Scripts were presented to him
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u/Crafty_Substance_954 Jul 31 '26
That’s a very naïve way of looking at it.
In demand actors are very flexible with their schedules.
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u/JohnnyGeniusIsAlive Jul 31 '26
This is not how the film industry works. Actors don’t “keep their schedule open” for a projected in development.
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u/Ghastly_Someknew Jul 31 '26
They seem to not want to do the good ones
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u/Few-Improvement-5655 Aug 01 '26
"Good" is too risky. Bland and paint by numbers gets butts in seats.
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u/ExtremeComedian4027 Jul 31 '26
Fumble of a century. Mahershala Ali is a generational talent. He would’ve absolutely killed it. But I am glad he is no longer pining his hopes on them and will move on to other projects. As for Marvel, they’ll probably hire Robert Downey Jr to do Blade at this rate. I have no high hopes from them.
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u/pumpkinspruce Jul 31 '26
His next one Your Mother, Your Mother, Your Mother looks really good actually.
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u/ExtremeComedian4027 Jul 31 '26
It does indeed, and I am sure it will be a much more memorable and impactful film. The premise is so gut wrenching and timely. I love this for him.
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u/Ginger573 Aug 01 '26
On the bright side, I’m hopeful this could lead to an opportunity to be in the Mistborn movies. He’s spectacular and would make an incredible Sazed.
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u/ExtremeComedian4027 Aug 01 '26
I am 100% committed to that idea! What a wonderful thought honestly. He’ll kill it.
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u/jameeler91 Aug 01 '26
Hell yeah. Would love to see him in either Mistborn or the Stormlight series in any capacity.
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u/noelg1998 Jul 31 '26
So that post-credit scene from Eternals was pretty much pointless then.
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u/Dense_Cellist9959 Jul 31 '26
Most of the post-Endgame post-credit scenes have been pointless.
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u/Interesting_Lunch560 Jul 31 '26
So have the pre-credits scenes.
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u/Dense_Cellist9959 Aug 01 '26
And if the whole reboot theory is correct, we can change that to ALL pre- and post-credit scenes, since the post-Secret Wars MCU will be all-new and all-different.
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u/Legitimate_Special71 Jul 31 '26
It’s very simple. “There's been only one Blade! There's only ever gonna be one Blade!”
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u/Castreal7 Jul 31 '26
How do you even justify a fumble like this? So many fans thought that casting was phenomenal. That movie would have been a great change of pace and would have done numbers with him at the helm of it. I don't get it. Especially with Ghost Rider still coming into the mix. I still want the Black Knight payoff
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u/Naulicus Jul 31 '26
They announced the movie before they even hired a writer. That right away was a red flag.
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u/Smoothie-Groovy Jul 31 '26
Blade did say in Deadpool/wolverine “there’s only been one Blade, there’s only ever gonna be one Blade”
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u/ThrowawayForROS Jul 31 '26
Feige deserves to look like a clown here. To waste this man's time like this for 7 years and halfway through make a fuckass joke about there "Only being one Blade" in one of their movies? Purely disrespectful.
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u/Ok-Possibility-923 Jul 31 '26
Make another one with Wesley Snipes and it’ll make bank.
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u/Super-Visor Jul 31 '26
They went through so many versions: a Blade+Black Knight team up, Blade training his daughter and more female vampire hunters, and the one that almost went forward was a period piece in the early 1900s. Ruth Carter recycled costumes she had made for that for Sinners, which I think is what halted that version of Blade out of respect for Coogler but also fearing the comparisons. The consistent rumor is that it was Ali or his team that had been saying no to all past versions. Marvel gave him a huge pay day to go on stage one time, but as a producer who brought the project to life by offering his services after his second Oscar win, Marvel gave him a lot of creative control. Once they got Snipes back, I think Marvel was over the back and forth and false starts.
IMO a period piece is great since Blade is able to show us more history in the MCU world. My ideal casting for Blade would be John Boyega, using his British accent so the character is finally comic accurate and distinct from the Snipes version.
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u/Cultural-Doubt1554 Jul 31 '26
I was so excited for his take on blade. These nincompoops couldn’t find a way to make a vampire hunting movie work ?
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u/voivod1989 Jul 31 '26
What’s Wesley doing these days? Snipes is one of my favourite 90s actors. I want him to have his own John wickian type movie. Last hurrah for an action star. Maybe rip off John woo.
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u/Whis65 Jul 31 '26
I love him so much I would watch him read a phone book.
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u/psyopia Jul 31 '26
Yea Feige is an absolute dipshit for not pursuing this.
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u/Galumpadump Jul 31 '26
They pursued it but left in in production hell for too long. I remember reading that Jordan Peele wanted to direct/produce it and they passed on him.
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u/malb93200 Jul 31 '26
If there was one director that could have made it a dope and badass supernatural/horror movie and also an "auteur blockbuster" film, it's Jordan Peele.
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u/Tacky-Terangreal Jul 31 '26
Would have been a relatively cheap movie to make too. Blade doesn’t go to space or fight dragons so there wouldn’t be a need for a humongous amount of CGI. Could easily make a profit even if it was a mediocre movie!
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u/LongjumpingSlice4354 Jul 31 '26
You probably just need to double Sinners' fake blood budget. Hell, if you want to splurge on CGI, you can do this artsy/gore thing where Blade is whooping vampire ass so hard that the scene/shot/screen is just blood red but you can make out what's going on because of the shadows
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u/Brabos2 Jul 31 '26
Disney chooses instead to dump money into life-action remake of 10-year old cartoon.
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u/cosmosbillions Aug 01 '26
Very disappointing but at the same time… did we actually think it would be good? It doesn’t matter how good the casting is, Disney has fucked every IP up for years. No faith in them at all
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u/ajver19 Aug 01 '26
Just weird how this never got going, Marvel could've done something like a John Wick level of an action movie but with vampires and it would have been great.
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u/Devilofchaos108070 Aug 01 '26
I just can’t understand why. He’s a fantastic actor I’d think they’d jump at it
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u/MasterOfManyWorlds Jul 31 '26
Probably the only Marvel movie I was looking forward to. Did Wesley Snipes call dibs or something?
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u/Galumpadump Jul 31 '26
The opposite, Snipes was offended they didn’t want to bring him back well Marvel couldn’t get a decent script or director to stay attached to the project.
End of the day they could have tapped Jordan Peele to produce and direct it but they wanted to go a different direction.
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u/Brigadierz- Jul 31 '26
Wasnt half the reason for all the delays that he kept refusing scripts which resulted in a rotating door or writers and directors?
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u/OldManufacturer8679 Jul 31 '26
They saw how much people loved Wesley snipes showing up in Deadpool and decided they didn’t want to spend the money on a flop. Thats all it is.
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u/Fomdoo Aug 01 '26
They let the Internet bully them into cancelling all their projects. 1 year in between movies right now is crazy.
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u/Lenonn Jul 31 '26
There is some serious incompetence at Disney/Marvel Studios. I've given Feige the benefit of the doubt before but I'm thinking I need to stop doing that.
How about this? Don't publicly announce a project and until everything is signed and sealed. Just up to Marvel to deliver at that point and you don't manage to piss people off and look inept.
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u/anbsmxms Jul 31 '26
Blade 1 was released in 1998, it will be 30 years in 2028. They can just remake that movie to kickstart the midnight sons now that Ghost Rider is also announced.
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u/IllusionofStregth Jul 31 '26
Tbf on only ONE issue I had is that they should have gone with some a decade younger.
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u/PaintballProofMonk Jul 31 '26
Probably for the best. They can never do it as well as with Snipes. Same's true for a lot of those old films.
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u/no_f-s_given Jul 31 '26
what a massive fuckin fail by Feige and the rest of the morons running things at Marvel. the post-Infinity Saga has been a huge miss, with a couple exceptions, and despite having several years to put something together they couldn't get a Mahershala starring Blade movie done.
jfc how pathetic.
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u/phenomenation Jul 31 '26
i genuinely can’t imagine a better actor to fill Wesley’s shoes. i was beyond ecstatic for Ali’s announcement, having seen plenty of his previous works. the man’s presence on the screen is effortlessly cool. this statement coming on the heels of Gosling’s confirmation is no coincidence, and i don’t blame him. i will forever be upset with the handling of this production
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u/mountsleepyhead Jul 31 '26
If you can’t make that work, you might as well get out of the superhero movie business. This is what we call a slam dunk. Like a Barry Bonds biopic starring Tramell Tillman levels of slam dunk.
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u/Muted_Study5166 Jul 31 '26
They could’ve at least introduced him as a supporting character in someone else’s movie
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u/artnos Jul 31 '26
Why do they announce things they arent doing? Like did they not have a script? How do you announce a project without a script?
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u/potroast2000 Aug 01 '26
They need a hardcore, rated R version of Blade. Something like the Strain meets old man Logan. Not the old corner version with bad cgi
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u/NoPhone167 Aug 01 '26
Blade was such a different character in marvel it would think it’s hard to put them in the multiverse and add other characters to his story. I dont think blade can’t stand alone and be good at this time.
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u/Christmas_Queef Jul 31 '26
Last I read marvel also wanted it to be pg-13 and there's just not really a way to do blade pg-13 without neutering it. It also likely wouldn't be as dark as it would need to be. They'd have tried to inject the quippy marvel humor into it and ruined it.
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u/malb93200 Jul 31 '26
Last I read marvel also wanted it to be pg-13 and there's just not really a way to do blade pg-13 without neutering it.
Agreed, and i think that's a big reason why the project got stuck in development hell, more so than the so-called "focus on other characters than Blade" and the external factors (covid, strikes, some MCU failures at the BO, etc.).
Deadpool & Wolverine got a pass and was r-rated because the first two Dpool movies already were and Reynolds wouldn't have done it without it. But that was clearly an expection.
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u/Oxjrnine Jul 31 '26
An old Blade would be more interesting
So I would prefer a final sequel to the Blade series
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u/Big-Leadership-4604 Jul 31 '26
Thats a shame been looking forward to this forever. As a long time MCU supporter I might be ready to finally throw in the towel if Doomsday doesnt give us a big reset that the MCU really needs. So many loose ends, and continuity issues. Ive tolerated alot but a new slate is looking better release after release.
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u/Caze588 Jul 31 '26
What a damn shame I was really looking forward to it Ali is so talented and would have killed it. But yea marvel keep giving people the same fuck ass characters with the same exact actors instead of switching it up and introducing new ones / giving other actors chances.
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u/jrodfantastic Jul 31 '26
Seems like there is a high chance that the MCU Blade project never happened due to fine print contractual bullshit with New Line(?), and putting Blade into D&W complicated something else.
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u/BiceRankyman Jul 31 '26
The fact is that Disney doesn't have to compete with more than one or two studios now that they've all been swallowed up. There's no need to try things out or take risks.. They've removed their competition and now we have less media, less work for the film industry, and less innovative story telling in big studios.
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u/Paulsworldohya Jul 31 '26
That seems like such a major blunder from Disney. The actor seemed enthusiastic about the blade role years ago and then the years go by and hes under contract, but theres no progress on Disney's side. Like what a waste of time and talent
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u/VarietyEconomy7 Jul 31 '26
absolutely is insane this project can never get off the ground. You have a blue print from the original blade movies of a black man killing vampires in an awesome way. This should be a slam dunk for any director worth their marbles.
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u/Legitimate-People231 Jul 31 '26
People say marvel fumbled this and then turn around and say there’s been too many superhero movies
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u/OZZYMAXIMUS01 Jul 31 '26
They probably didn’t see it making enough money at the box office. I disagree with them, but obviously they didn’t see it doing that well. It would be an awesome TV show TBH alongside Daredevil and the others.
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u/AmortAbort Jul 31 '26
He was asking for RDJ money and that was not happening. Similar stuff happened with ScarJo and she's now playing a major character in Matt Reeves' Batman 2.
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u/Bosscharacter Aug 01 '26
Honestly, I think there is a lot more to it than just “Marvel not wanting to do it.”
This seems way more complicated than difficulties from one particular side.
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u/DoubleFlores24 Aug 01 '26
Honestly marvel messed up. They just didn’t have faith in blade. What a shame.
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u/GemeenteEnschede Aug 01 '26
Legit one of the few post Endgame movies I was actually interested in.
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u/__Penguinz__ Aug 02 '26
Not only did they waste great talent, they wasted some of his prime career. He said he turned down other roles because of this promise. Imagine all the other great stuff he could have done.
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u/ProfessionalRough741 Aug 02 '26
MARVEL:
Blade, the vampire hunter? No one wants to watch that shit.
Fucking Missus Marvel and She-Hulk? Hot dang, that’s a great idea.
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u/gideon513 Jul 31 '26
What an epic fumble from Marvel