Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige recently described his inability to produce the long-delayed “Blade” reboot as the biggest failure of his career, a sentiment that co-star Mahershala Ali fully supports. Speaking to GQ, the two-time Oscar winner expressed bewilderment that the project never reached production despite having a contracted A-list actor and substantial funding behind it.
“That’s a Kevin Feige question,” Ali said when asked why the studio stalled. “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.”
The troubled production history of “Blade” dates back to its initial announcement in July 2019. Director Bassam Tariq was originally attached but departed in September 2022, just months before filming was slated to begin. Reports from November 2023 indicated the film had cycled through at least five screenwriters, including Stacy Osei-Kuffour and Michael Starrbury. Yann Demange later joined as director but exited in June 2024.
Throughout the development hell, Ali maintained his enthusiasm for the role. Last summer, he told Variety he was ready to begin filming, and earlier this year he issued a pointed message to the studio: “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.”
In July 2025, Feige attributed the delays to Marvel’s “over-expansion” into Disney+ content, admitting that for the first time, “quantity trumped quality.” He stated that “Blade” was among the projects that stalled when the studio began reevaluating its development process.
Ali also reflected on the broader challenges of his career, noting that even after winning Oscars for “Moonlight” and “Green Book,” he still found himself competing for roles rather than receiving automatic offers, such as when he fought to join HBO’s “True Detective” Season 3. He described a sense of relief in realizing that no one was coming to save him, but acknowledged the exhaustion of constantly having to prove himself in the industry.
Feige blaming over-expansion feels like a convenient excuse. How do you lose a vampire movie to a TV schedule?
Oscar winner with billions in funding and no movie. What a bizarre situation for such a talented actor to be in.
I’m still confused how they had Mahershala under contract but couldn’t find a director? The budget was clearly there. Something feels off about this story.
Honestly, Blade having so many directors and writers is insane. It’s a perfect example of why quality suffered during that Disney+ expansion era.