In the immediate aftermath of 2019’s Avengers: Endgame, everything seemed to be coming up roses for Marvel Studios. Over the course of eleven years, the once bankrupt studio had steadily built up steam and gained traction with general audiences and hardcore comic fans alike, building up to Endgame, their culminating film, breaking records and becoming one of the highest-grossing films of all time. Following the success of the film, it looked as if Marvel could do anything, and they seemed intent on leveraging that goodwill in a vast litany of ways.
Heading into 2020, Marvel had ambitious plans to both further hone its theatrical output and (at the behest of the Walt Disney Corporation) expand into a series of high-profile streaming series’. However, as history has borne out, even the most well-intentioned of these plans would eventually come crumbling down. Instead of the victory lap and cementation of cultural dominance that the studio was clearly hoping for, Marvel’s output in the 2020s has instead been one of near constant disappointment, dismay, and turmoil. And there is perhaps no better encapsulation of all of these difficulties than their fledgling attempts to get a new Blade movie off the ground, which have failed at every turn; something that Kevin Feige is now admitting he is deeply ashamed about.
Kevin Feige is the architect of the Marvel Cinematic Universe; the head honcho who has been steering the ship for the entire interconnected franchise’s run. In a recent interview with the Happy Sad Confused podcast, Feige admitted that Blade continues to be a source of frustration for both the studio and himself. As he said, “I am feeling like a gigantic loser and failure that we didn't get off the ground with Mahershala.”
The new Blade film was announced in July of 2019, mere weeks after Avengers: Endgame’s release, as Marvel trotted the highly-renowned and Academy Award-winning actor, Mahershala Ali, out on stage. The character would then have what remains his only in-universe appearance, albeit exclusively in audio form, in a post-credit scene of the 2021 film Eternals. That tag was meant to set up the character’s own film, possibly even co-starring Eternals characters, but Eternals turned into a financial and critical disappointment for the brand. While it was far from the last of such disappointments Marvel would encounter in the 2020s, it was the first, and the studio seemed to full-blown freak the fuck out about it, distancing themselves from the project to a near-comical degree. This resulted in Ali’s would-be-Blade movie getting lost in the shuffle.
Since then, countless writers and directors have come aboard and subsequently left the project, with numerous announced production start dates and releases passing in the interim. Yet still, in 2026, audiences are no closer to seeing Mahershala Ali’s take on the character than they were in 2019. In fact, they might even be further away, given that Blade did appear in 2023’s Deadpool and Wolverine, but was once again played by Wesley Snipes, the actor who originated the role in the original trilogy of films.
Now, with Avengers: Doomsday and a full universe rest in the works, its more unclear than ever about when or if a Mahershala Ali Blade film will actually happen, and no one seems more actutely aware of that than Kevin Feige himself.
Add us as a preferred source on Google