Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige has expressed disappointment that the Blade reboot, which was supposed to star Mahershala Ali as the legendary vampire slayer, fell through. “I feel like a huge loser and a failure for not getting things going with Mahershala,” Feige candidly said on the Happy Sad Confused podcast. The studio chief also admitted that it was “very exciting” for Wesley Snipes to return as Blade in 2024’s Deadpool & Wolverine.
Marvel originally announced the movie Blade starring Ali in July 2019. Director Bassam Tariq was the first director to join the film, but left in September 2022, about two months before filming began. Several screenwriters came and went during development, from Watchmen screenwriter Stacey Osei-Kuffour to Michael Starberry. After Tariq’s departure, Yann Demange took over as manager, but Demange eventually resigned in June 2024.
Variety reported in November 2023 that Blade went through at least five screenwriters. A person familiar with the script changes said the story changed at some point to be more female-driven and full of life lessons. Speculation at the time was that Marvel was still considering making the film, but the budget was said to be less than $100 million. Marvel Studios has officially removed Blade from its fall 2024 release calendar.
Despite the film’s struggles in development, Ali’s interest in playing Blade never wavered. “I’m ready. Let me know you’re ready,” he told Variety on the red carpet for Jurassic World: Rebirth last summer.
Speaking to reporters in July 2025, Feige explained that Blade’s long delay was a sign of Marvel’s “overexpansion” into Disney+ streaming content, and that “for the first time in history, quantity outweighs quality.” When Marvel began re-evaluating its development process, the movie Blade was one of the projects that stalled.
“We didn’t want to just put a leather costume on and start killing vampires. It had to be unique,” Feige explained. “It fell into a period where we stepped back and started saying, ‘We’ll only accept the insanely great.’ And back then, ‘insanely awesome’ wasn’t.” We didn’t think, as often happens, that if you have a good script, you can turn it into a great script through production. We didn’t have confidence that we could do that with Blade, and we didn’t want to do the same thing to Mahershala, and we didn’t want to do the same thing to ourselves. ”
