Mahershala Ali calls Kevin Feige a failure

Mahershala Ali is confirming what fans had long suspected, Marvel's Blade reboot is officially dead, and he doesn't hold back in agreeing with Kevin Feige's own harsh self-assessment of the failed project. 

Speaking with GQ's Zach Baron on the One More Question podcast, Ali was asked why the long-delayed film never made it into production.

"That's a Kevin Feige question," he said. 

"They had, as you said, a two-time Oscar-winning actor under contract and you got billions of dollars. That's a question for them. I don't mean anything personal to you, but I don't know why it didn't. To this day, I don't know why it didn't happen. I just know that it was, Kevin, he said it was the biggest failure of his career and I agree."

Ali's comments echo remarks Feige made earlier this summer on the Happy Sad Confused podcast, where the Marvel Studios president admitted, "I am feeling like a gigantic loser and failure that we didn't get off the ground with Mahershala." 

Ali went further in confirming just how strongly he shares that view. 

"I agree with him one hundred percent. One hundred percent. He should feel that way. I agree." 

Speaking separately at the Toronto International Film Festival, Ali indicated he's moved past the disappointment entirely, saying, "I'm over that. I'm done with that," while reiterating that Marvel had both the contractual leverage and financial resources to make the film happen if the studio had truly prioritised it.

Marvel first announced Blade at San Diego Comic-Con in 2019, with Ali stepping onto the stage to place the character's signature cap on his head. 

The project went through years of turmoil in development, losing director Bassam Tariq in 2022 and his successor, Yann Demange, in 2024, while cycling through at least five different screenwriters, including Stacy Osei-Kuffour and Michael Starrbury. 

Marvel ultimately pulled the film from its release calendar in 2024 following repeated delays, with no frame of footage ever shot. 

Reflecting on the personal cost of the years spent waiting for the project, Ali noted the gap it left in his filmography since winning his second Oscar, suggesting he should have made "six or seven" more films during that stretch.

Notably, Tariq, the film's original director, has since reunited with Ali on an unrelated project, Your Mother Your Mother Your Mother, in which Ali plays a blade-carrying assassin, a role that puts years of martial arts training he did in preparation for Blade to use in a different context entirely.