Mahershala Ali Opens Up About the Extraordinary Amount of Time, Fitness, and Career Opportunities She Sacrificed Waiting for Marvel Studios to Make Blade – and agrees with Kevin Feige’s brutal assessment of the studio’s failure to get the film off the ground.
Marvel Studios announced Ali as their new Blade at San Diego Comic-Con in July 2019. Seven years later, the two-time Academy Award winner was never able to make the film.
During a new interview with GQAli was asked what finally happened to the perpetually delayed Marvel production.
“That’s a Kevin Feige question,” Ali responded.
He said that despite being the star of the film, he still doesn’t have a satisfactory explanation for why Marvel couldn’t make it happen.
“To this day, I don’t know why it didn’t happen,” Ali said.
The interviewer then referenced Feige’s own comments about the Blade debacle. Earlier this year, the Marvel Studios president described himself as a “losing, failed giant” for not being able to make the movie with Ali.
Ali did not disagree.
“I agree with him,” Ali said. “I agree with him 100%. 100%, he should feel that way.”
Ali’s comments take on much more weight when combined with his account of everything he did preparing for a movie that never happened.
Ali says he trained until he got hurt
Ali wasn’t just sitting around waiting for Marvel to decide on a script.
He says he spent about a year physically preparing to become Blade.
“I spent a year training,” Ali said. GQ. That preparation included sword training and martial arts work, and Ali says he eventually pushed himself hard enough to suffer a knee injury.
“I trained so hard until I broke my knee,” he recalled.
Blade in Marvel’s Blade (Arkane Lyon)
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Ali continued to prepare as Marvel repeatedly moved the production schedule.
The delays ultimately affected his family as well. Ali says he moved his family to Atlanta in anticipation that production would finally begin.
“We’re there waiting to leave,” he said, but the cameras never started rolling.
Instead, according to Ali, Marvel kept “backing, backing, backing.”
Marvel delays cost Ali another job
Ali also revealed that the repeated delays affected what other projects he could take on.
Because Marvel controlled its schedule while preparing BladeAli says he was forced to turn down other roles.
“I’m saying no to things at that moment because they basically own my schedule,” she explained. That puts the Blade development saga in a very different perspective.
Mahershala Ali as Cottonmouth in Luke Cage – Disney+
Ali wasn’t simply attached to a movie that ultimately fell apart. By his account, he physically trained for the role, injured himself in preparation for it, relocated his family, booked substantial portions of his professional schedule, and turned down other opportunities as Marvel repeatedly delayed production.
And after all that, he never played Blade in his own movie.
The closest audiences got to Ali’s version of the character was a brief voice cameo during the 2021 post-credits scene. Eternals.
Seven years of blade problems
Marvel originally introduced Ali as Blade during its massive unveiling at the 2019 San Diego Comic-Con, when Feige brought the actor onto the Hall H stage and Ali revealed a Blade hat.
The project subsequently became one of the most notorious development sagas in Marvel Studios history.
Bassam Tariq was originally hired to direct, but left in 2022. Yann Demange later took over before leaving the project in 2024.
The film also went through multiple writers and incarnations as Marvel tried to settle on a script.
Blade: The Early Years Omnibus (2023), Marvel Comics
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Finally, Marvel removed Blade of its release schedule entirely.
Feige acknowledged earlier this year that Marvel’s repeated failures to make the film weighed on him personally.
“I feel like a big loser and a failure for not being able to get off the ground with Mahershala,” Feige said.
Ali has now made it clear that he believes Feige’s assessment is justified.
Ali didn’t want Marvel to announce Blade so soon
Perhaps one of Ali’s most interesting revelations GQ interview is that he wasn’t particularly excited about Marvel’s decision to announce Blade years before it was ready to shoot.
“I don’t believe in ads,” Ali said. Their preference is to essentially do something first and tell the audience about it when there is actually something to show them.
In retrospect, Marvel’s huge Hall H reveal couldn’t have aged much worse.
Mahershala Ali gives an interview – YouTube, ExtraTV
The ad generated enormous attention in 2019, but the studio apparently didn’t have the script, director, or production plan needed to turn that ad into a finished film.
Ali became the public face of a Marvel project that spent years stuck in development. By 2026, he’s had enough.
When asked earlier if Blade It could still happen, Ali gave a definitive answer.
“Not with me,” he said. “If they wanted to do it, we would have done it. They didn’t want to do it, so they should answer that question.”
The original director of Ali and Blade did something else instead
There is an ironic final chapter to the story. Ali finally reunited with the original. Blade director Bassam Tariq for Your Mother Your Mother Your Mother.
Tariq wrote and directed the film, with Ali playing Latif, a hitman whose life changes after the death of his wife.
HOLLYWOOD, CALIFORNIA – JULY 25: Kevin Feige speaks during his ceremony with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in Hollywood, California on July 25, 2024. (Photo by Charley Gallay/Getty Images for Disney)
Ali now says he is really grateful. Blade It didn’t happen because doing the Marvel movie would have prevented him from working on Your Mother Your Mother Your Mother.
That means the original star and director of Marvel’s Blade They finally managed to make a movie together.
it just wasn’t Blade.
What do you think of Mahershala Ali and his comments about Kevin Feige and Marvel? Let us know and tell us!
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