Mahershala Ali is obviously not happy about Marvel’s Kevin Feige repeatedly delaying and finally canceling the “Blade” movie he was supposed to star in.
Back in July, Feige confirmed what many had long suspected: the “Blade” reboot that was supposed to star Ali is dead. “I am feeling like a gigantic loser and failure that we didn’t get off the ground with Mahershala.”
Now, speaking to GQ, Ali says that, yeah, he agrees with that assessment: it was the worst failure of Feige’s career.
“That’s a Kevin Feige question,” Ali said when asked why “Blade” never went into production. “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. I just know that it was—Kevin, he said it was the biggest failure of his career and I agree.”
Look, Ali sounds bitter, but can you blame him? The guy turned down work and moved his family to make this movie, and Marvel dragged him along for years before quietly putting it out of its misery. Is Ali being unprofessional? A bit, sure. There’s honesty, and then there’s torching the place on your way out. But what does he have to lose at this point? That bridge is long gone.
There was clearly some incompetence on Feige’s part here. He’s the boss. The buck stops with him. That being said, I’m not sure this “Blade” movie ever stood a chance. Marvel just didn’t seem capable of making a standalone, R-rated Blade film without cramming in multiverse tie-ins and passing-of-the-torch nonsense.
At least Ali got to go off and make “Your Mother, Your Mother, Your Mother” with original “Blade” director Bassam Tariq. The two of them let go of “Blade,” put Ali’s years of extensive martial arts training from “Blade” prep to use, and made this strange, handmade thriller in which Ali plays a blade-carrying assassin. Nobody involved is pretending the timing is an accident. The best part is that it’s a damn good movie, set to hit theaters on Friday.
Scratch the 50/50. It's more like 70% mixed-to-negative from what I've seen, but it's got a few defenders, which leaves me very curious.