Kevin Feige doesn’t usually let his guard down in interviews. But asked directly about the state of Marvel’s long-stalled Blade reboot during an appearance on the Happy Sad Confused podcast, the Marvel Studios president dropped the diplomatic answer entirely. Speaking with host Josh Horowitz, Feige admitted he felt like “a gigantic loser and failure that we didn’t get off the ground with Mahershala,” according to Variety.
The Comment That Sparked It All
The exchange came during what CBR described as a rapid-fire round of questions, where Horowitz pushed Feige on the project’s status. Feige’s tone shifted noticeably depending on the topic: he called the return of Wesley Snipes‘s Blade in Deadpool & Wolverine a genuine bright spot, telling Horowitz he was “feeling very excited that we got Wesley back for a time,” before pivoting to the disappointment over Ali’s version stalling out entirely.
How the Project Fell Apart
Blade, starring two-time Oscar winner Mahershala Ali, was first announced at San Diego Comic-Con in 2019. Since then, it’s cycled through two directors — Bassam Tariq and Yann Demange — and a revolving door of writers, according to MovieWeb. Production was reportedly halted just six weeks before it was set to begin shooting. Feige previously offered more insight into what went wrong, explaining that Marvel didn’t want to simply put Ali in a costume and start the story, describing the studio’s shift toward only greenlighting projects it considered “insanely great” — a bar Blade’s scripts reportedly never cleared, per AOL.
The Silver Lining, Sort Of
Even without a finished film, Ali’s version of Blade hasn’t been entirely absent from the MCU. As ScreenRant notes, an alternate animated version of the character appeared in Marvel Zombies, and Ali voiced a brief, unseen cameo as Blade in a post-credits scene for Eternals. Snipes, meanwhile, got to poke fun at the situation directly, delivering a now-widely-quoted line in Deadpool & Wolverine about there only ever being one Blade — a joke Collider points out lands very differently now that Feige has confirmed how discouraged he genuinely feels about the reboot.
What’s Next for Ali’s Blade
Feige stopped short of declaring the project dead outright, and JoBlo notes he used the same podcast appearance to confirm other pieces of Marvel’s release calendar, including that Avengers: Doomsday will keep its date despite opening alongside Dune: Part Three. Whether Ali ever appears as Blade on screen remains unresolved, though some fans have speculated he could still debut in Avengers: Doomsday or 2027’s Avengers: Secret Wars. For now, Feige’s comments stand as the most candid public acknowledgment yet that, seven years after it was announced, Blade remains one of Marvel Studios’ most visible unfinished projects.
