Mahershala Ali is not softening his assessment of Marvel’s abandoned attempt to make a Blade reboot with him in the title role.

Seven years after Ali was announced for the project at Comic-Con 2019, the two-time Oscar winner has agreed with Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige’s description of the movie as the biggest failure of Feige’s career.

Ali confirmed in a July interview with GQ that he would no longer lead Blade. In a new profile, he said he still has no explanation for why the long-planned film failed to materialize.

“That’s a Kevin Feige question,” Ali said when asked what happened. “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.”

He added: “I just know that it was — Kevin, he said it was the biggest failure of his career and I agree.”

Ali backs Feige’s blunt verdict

Feige addressed the stalled reboot during a July appearance on the Happy Sad Confused podcast. While discussing the character, he said he was “very excited” that original Blade star Wesley Snipes appeared in 2024’s Deadpool & Wolverine.

But Feige was considerably less celebratory about Marvel’s inability to get the Ali-led film moving. He said he felt “like a gigantic loser and failure that we didn’t get [the Blade reboot] off the ground with Mahershala.”

After that comment was read back to Ali, the actor emphatically endorsed Feige’s view.

“I agree with him. I agree with him one hundred percent. One hundred percent. He should feel that way. I agree,” Ali said.

Ali’s remarks also make clear how much work he had already invested in the role. He said he spent a year preparing for the film as Marvel repeatedly delayed it.

“I trained so hard I blew my knee out. I was just waiting for them,” he said. “I’m still training. I’m training. I’m learning sword work. Name the martial art, I’m training in it.”

The commitment extended beyond physical preparation. Ali said he uprooted his family and relocated to Atlanta while waiting for production to begin.

“We are there waiting to go,” he recalled. “And they just keep pushing it back, pushing it back, pushing it. It doesn’t happen. And then it’s a strike.”

The work carried into another film

Despite the disappointment surrounding Blade, Ali said the experience ultimately helped lead to another collaboration. Bassam Tariq, who had been attached to direct the Marvel reboot, went on to direct Ali in Your Mother Your Mother Your Mother.

Ali said he is “grateful” the Marvel film did not happen because he does not believe the newer project would otherwise exist.

During an appearance in the inaugural Game Recognize Game series, the actor explained that he and Tariq were able to redirect the preparation and working relationship they had developed for Blade.

“For Your Mother Your Mother Your Mother, I got to unite with a director by the name of Bassam Tariq,” Ali said. “We were originally supposed to work on Blade together. That didn’t happen, but we were able to use that training and the time we spent together and put it to good use on Your Mother Your Mother Your Mother.”

For Ali, that creative reunion provided a positive outcome from years of preparation and delays. It has not, however, changed his judgment of Marvel’s failure to make the announced version of Blade: on that point, he and Feige are in complete agreement.