Mahershala Ali responds candidly when asked about Marvel’s Blade reboot

By Shahana Yasmin

Mahershala Ali wants to be left out of questions about Marvel’s ill-fated Blade reboot he was meant to be in.

Appearing on Vogue’s Off the Cuff, his Jurassic World Rebirth co-star Jonathan Bailey asked him and Scarlett Johansson how many Marvel films they’d each appeared in.

“Leave me out of it. That’s a Scarlett question,” Ali responded immediately.

“Well, there’s one that we’re very excited about,” Bailey replied, referencing Ali’s Blade reboot.

The reboot was first announced way back at Comic-Con 2019, with Ali being cast in the title role, and was first supposed to be released in cinemas back in 2023. However, the film has since seen two directors depart from the project, its second November 2025 release date pulled from schedules, and even seen original Blade actor Wesley Snipes poke fun at the troubled production.

Marvel head Kevin Feige said in November 2024 that the “character will be coming to the MCU”.

“We love the character, we love Mahershala’s version of him. And rest assured: whenever we change direction with a project or are still trying to figure out how it fits into our schedule, we let the public know,” he told Brazilian entertainment website Omelette.

“You’re up to date on what’s going on,” he added, as per Deadline. “But I can tell you that the character will be coming to the MCU.”

In April this year, actor Delroy Lindo revealed that he exited the reboot when the project “went off the rails”.

“When Marvel came to me, they seemed to be really interested in my input,” he told Entertainment Weekly. “And in the various conversations I had with producers, the writer, the director at the time, it was all leading into being very inclusive.

“It was really exciting conceptually, but it was also exciting in terms of the character that was going to form. And then, for whatever reason, it just went off the rails.”

Recently, it was revealed that background actors and extras on Ryan Coogler’s Sinners ended up wearing costumes that were originally intended for the Blade reboot.

“Ruth Carter was working on the Blade movie that ended up not shooting,” Sinner producer Sev Ohanian said on Screencrush: The Podcast, referring to costume designer Ruth Carter.

“At one point, that movie was going to deal with, and she’s talked about this before, but at one point that film was going to deal with the past around the same era [that Sinners is set].”

“She happened to have a warehouse full of period-appropriate clothes, and it was like, ‘Yo, we got to shoot this movie like tomorrow.’ And Marvel was generous enough and kind enough to let us basically purchase it at price.”

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