In an interview with GQ magazine to promote his new action film Your Mother Your Mother Your Mother, actor Mahershala Ali states that the long-gestating Blade movie he was set to star in will not happen with him. He comments, “For whatever reason, that project is not [meant] for me. If they [Marvel Studios] wanted to do it, we would’ve done it. So I have to move on, and I have moved on.”
He adds, “Again, you had me under contract, they have billions of dollars, if they wanted to do the movie, we would’ve done the movie. So we’re not doing the movie,” and “I feel ready to move on from the Blade questions. Those questions are for [Marvel]. They didn’t want to do it, so they should answer that question.”
Ali was announced as starring in the MCU’s Blade reboot at San Diego Comic-Con in 2019, and subsequently made a voice cameo in the post-credits scene of Eternals (2021). Your Mother Your Mother Your Mother and Mogul Mowgli director Bassam Tariq became attached to the film that year, only to be replaced by Yann Demange (Lovecraft Country) a year later. Demange left in 2024 after filming was delayed by the SAG-AFTRA and WGA strikes, and the movie was subsequently taken off Disney’s release calendar.
Kevin Feige has commented not producing the film has made him feel “like a gigantic loser and failure.” However, the original film version of Blade/Eric Brooks, played by Wesley Snipes, ultimately made his MCU debut in 2024’s Deadpool & Wolverine instead, and Ali’s likeness was used in 2025’s animated series Marvel Zombies, where a version of the character merged with Moon Knight was voiced by Todd Williams.
Additionally, Tariq and Ali both say that the fight training the actor underwent to play Blade benefited Your Mother Your Mother Your Mother enormously. “I was able to use those skills that I had been working on for over a year training for Blade,” the latter says. “In that way, I feel creatively redeemed on some level, just in my own journey between me, myself, and I.”
It’s possible Ali might still play the role in a crossover film like Midnight Sons, which has become more likely following Ryan Gosling‘s casting as Ghost Rider, but whether he would even want to remains to be seen. In the meantime, Your Mother Your Mother Your Mother will be released in select theaters on September 25, before opening wide in October. The fate of Arkane’s Blade video game also remains currently up in the air.
