Marvel President Explains Delay on Mahershala Ali’s ‘Blade’

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There may be no situation more head-scratching to Marvel fans than the delay in Mahershala Ali’s reboot of the popular film Blade.

While Ali himself has even bluntly stated that he's "ready" to make the movie, Marvel has provided little in terms of updates on the film. Considering that Blade was initially announced in 2019 and slated for release in November 2023, that's a clear cause for concern.

But while fans were left doing exactly what Ali was—awaiting an update—Marvel president Kevin Feige finally addressed the topic.

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Unfortunately, it doesn't sound as though the reboot of the popular Wesley Snipes film is coming in the immediate future. However, it's also not time to declare it dead entirely.

Mahershala Ali and Kevin Feige attend Marvel Studios Panel during Comic-Con International at San Diego Convention Center.

Albert L. Ortega/Getty Images

During a recent interview, Feige explained that the prolonged delay in creating Blade was a symptom of "over-expansion," as Variety reported.

Feige addressed the Blade delays directly, admitting that he didn't want to "just put a leather outfit on [Ali] and have him start killing vampires."

"We didn’t want to simply just put a leather outfit on him and have him start killing vampires. It had to be unique," Feige explained. "It fell into the time when we started pulling back and saying, 'Only accept insanely great.' And it wasn’t ‘insanely great’ at the time."

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"We didn’t feel like, as we often do, you can have a good script and make it a great script through production. We didn’t feel confident that we could do that on 'Blade,' and we didn’t want to do that to Mahershala and didn’t want to do that to us."

So, the big question is whether the Blade reboot will still happen.

That remains an unknown, although Marvel and Feige didn't shut it down entirely. There's no director attached to the film, though, and if the company doesn't believe the script is "insanely great," it may come down to whether they decide to prioritize that before making any final decision.

While it's not the answer fans were hoping for, it at least explains part of the six-year delay that has left all Blade fans in the dark.

Related: Alan Ritchson as Batman? James Gunn Raises Eyebrows With Comments on 'Reacher' Star

Marvel President Explains Delay on Mahershala Ali’s ‘Blade’ first appeared on Men's Journal on Jul 21, 2025