Mahershala Ali Tells Variety He Is Done With Blade, Leaving Marvel's Supernatural MCU Without Its Vampire Hunter

Mahershala Ali has finally said the sentence he always stopped short of saying: he is done with Blade. Asked by Variety whether Blade is really done, he answered, "I'm done," and just like that, Marvel Studios officially no longer has a Blade.

It is a fumble in its own right for Marvel to take a lesser known character or franchise, say the Eternals, turn it into a major motion picture and not do a good job of it. But it is an even bigger fumble to take a character that everyone loves like Blade, announce the movie and then never make it. By now the breakdown between the studio, Mahershala Ali, four directors and five writers on the project has been very publicly disseminated. Up until now, though, Ali had stopped short of saying he was completely done with the character. We just knew the movie was canceled.

With the recent announcement of Ryan Gosling as Ghost Rider, it seemed promising for Midnight Sons, or a supernatural side of the MCU, to manifest in the future. That could have been an excellent place for Blade to make his way back into the MCU, after only one offscreen voiceover in the Eternals post credits scene, which is exactly why I mentioned that film above.

Mahershala Ali tells Variety he trained for Blade for more than a year and is now over it

Ali had already said quite a few things about Marvel Studios not making Blade, including, quite recently, something along the lines of: they have billions of dollars, and if they wanted to make the movie, they would have made it. At the same time, industry insiders like Daniel RPK claimed Ali's Blade would be reintroduced in some form during Avengers: Secret Wars. And with Gosling arriving as Ghost Rider, it seemed the Midnight Sons rumour, which even Oscar Isaac has acknowledged in interviews, may be true. That would have been a perfect spot for Blade.

Not so fast. Variety asked Ali directly whether he had trained for Blade. His answer: "Oh, yeah, absolutely. For a year. Yeah, it was a little more than a year." He was being interviewed about a different film, and he said he was actually grateful, because Marvel effectively helped pay for it. There was no way, he explained, that he could have gone to do this film and also gone off to train for a year. "I'm so grateful that they made a wonderful contribution to our film," he said.

Then came the question of whether Blade is really done. Ali said he is doing this film and anything else moving forward, adding: "So, like yeah, I'm over that. I'm done with that." As simple as that, Marvel Studios no longer has a Blade.

Why I completely side with Mahershala Ali over Marvel Studios

As for the Daniel RPK scoop about Ali showing up in Avengers: Secret Wars, perhaps there was an original plan to try to get him involved. But his quote about Marvel having billions of dollars, and making Blade if they wanted to, is absolutely true, and I can completely side with his sentiment at this point. If you announce Blade and then cannot allocate the resources to get it done, there is no reason for him to stick around and play that character just to show up in other people's films. How would that serve his actual interests in playing Blade?

Remember the original announcement at San Diego Comic Con in the summer of 2019. Ali approached Marvel Studios and said, in effect, that he wanted to play Blade. That may have been the genesis of the problem: Marvel Studios may never have had an actual agenda to make that film and fit it in. In that case, I argue, they should have said the film was not on their radar. They should not have announced him as Blade and then never made the movie.

That decision obviously comes from a different time, when Marvel Studios was greenlighting far more projects than it had even planned to get to. We have since seen how schedules in Hollywood can shift around things like an actors strike or the pandemic, and there is no reason for the studio to ever announce that kind of film that way again. Maybe they have learned their lesson. But from Ali's point of view, I can totally see him saying: if you don't want to make the Blade film, that's fine, but I'm not sticking around as Blade to show up in your other projects.

Ghost Rider and the supernatural MCU are left at zero without a Blade

So where does that leave Marvel Studios, now introducing Ghost Rider with plans for a supernatural side of the MCU? Quite honestly, it leaves them at zero. You don't want to do that side of the MCU, with characters like Werewolf by Night and Elsa Bloodstone, without a Blade, and it would be the biggest slap in the face, probably an even bigger insult. The only way to make things worse would be to turn around and cast a new Blade.

I know some people will say they still want a Blade in the MCU, and I hear that. But there is a reason I brought up Eternals right at the start, and it is not only because Blade technically showed up there. It comes down to making a film for the film's sake versus making a film for the bottom line, and then reconciling the two to create true art that is also mainstream successful. I am not arguing that a great Blade movie wouldn't make a ton of money. Marvel Studios knows that, Ali knows that and the audience knows that. It is the first part of that phrase, a great Blade movie, that may have held them up in the first place.

The Wesley Snipes Blade films set a bar, and I wonder whether that pressure now hangs over X-Men

I think the Blade movies from the Wesley Snipes era very clearly hold up. If something has come before that you are remaking, it has to be at least better than that, or there is no point in making it. It is one thing to make a bad Marvel movie. It is even worse to have good versions of that character you can compare it to.

That is why the X-Men film Marvel is about to make is on my mind. It has the most films to be compared to, and I think it is clear some sort of pressure overhangs it. It would be silly to think the producers, directors and all the creatives involved in a Blade or an X-Men film aren't acutely aware of every previous cinematic take and trying to improve on them. If that pressure got to them with Blade, I wonder what they have learned and internalised with X-Men. It is a little different, because Kevin Feige served as a producer on many of the earlier X-Men films and was directly involved, and he will be doing that again now.

On the flip side, if they couldn't make a Blade movie better than the Snipes films, they could simply decide not to make one. They don't have that luxury with X-Men; that movie is very obviously getting made. I wonder whether they might find themselves scrambling late in development to rewrite scripts or change the production, as they did multiple times with Blade. It is hard to imagine Jake Schreier leaving under any circumstance, and with fresh casting they won't go through public recasting either. What I am curious about is the reporting in the six months before principal photography begins at some point next year, alongside the push to finish Avengers: Secret Wars.

At the end of the day it is a huge fumble. Mahershala Ali's Blade would have been awesome, and I want a Blade in the live action MCU. It is hard to imagine getting one anytime soon, and it almost strands Ghost Rider in a world of his own if Marvel has no plan to develop that team.

Should Marvel recast Blade for its supernatural corner, or leave the character alone after Mahershala Ali's exit?