Mahershala Ali Agrees Kevin Feige Should Feel Like a “Failure” Over Marvel’s BLADE
Back at Comic-Con 2019, Marvel boss Kevin Feige made a slew of announcements that included a film remake of Blade, based on the half-vampire anti-hero previously played by Wesley Snipes in the late 90s/early 2000s movies.
The reboot was set to star two-time Academy Award winner Mahershala Ali (Moonlight, Green Book) in the title role. Everything was up in the air after that with the pandemic and strikes, and every studio’s slate seemed to readjust, but Feige remained steadfast for several years, stating a Blade film was still headed our way.
But after years of the project getting pushed off, with several directors coming and going, Feige finally addressed the troubled production, saying he feels like a "gigantic loser and failure that we didn't get off the ground with Mahershala."
While Ali said a couple of months ago that the film didn’t get made because Marvel didn’t want to make it, and he had moved on, he recently responded directly to Feige’s comments directly in an interview with GQ, where he said:
“I agree with him. I agree with him one hundred percent. One hundred percent. He should feel that way. I agree. They had, as you said, a two-time Oscar-winning actor under contract, and you got billions of dollars. That’s a question for [Marvel and Feige] … To this day, I don’t know why it didn’t happen.”
Ali also revealed that he wasn’t entirely supportive of the 2019 SDCC announcement, as it was so early in the process.
“I went to them in 2019. That was my first meeting. And we’re at Comic-Con by 2019 in the summer. I didn’t want to make no announcements. I don’t believe in the announcements … all this anticipatory stuff, I’m not a fan of that at all.
“But they want to do all that. We did all that and had a story greenlit, and then we don’t have any deliverables. I can’t deliver until they deliver. They never delivered. So that’s not a secret. Otherwise, we’d have a movie.”
Ali went on to tell GQ that he’s “grateful it didn’t happen” now, partially because it freed him up for other things, but also because he now realizes he might not have enjoyed being so closely associated with a single character.
“After the whole Marvel announcement, you realize there’s a lot of people who really don’t really know your work like that, but could go, ‘Oh, you’re playing Blade.'”
He was concerned about the idea of “anticipatory fame,” adding: “I had never experienced someone labeling you as a character … before it even comes out. So I feel like just for my nature, I think the blessing in disguise for me is that it sort of removes me out of that space of being.
“And there’s only one space where people become that type of famous and it’s in the Marvel world. After things began to sort of undo and I had to start divesting energetically, I felt okay about it because in looking back, I really want to be someone who originates things.”
Who knows why a Blade movie never came together? The fans were excited about it, and like Ali said, the star and funds were there. It’s too bad that opportunity passed them by. As for the future of the character, we will just have to wait and see.
via: Gizmodo