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The Marvel Studios president admits the long-delayed reboot remains one of his biggest disappointments
NEED TO KNOW
- Kevin Feige admitted during an appearance on the Happy Sad Confused podcast that he feels like a failure because he was unable to get the Blade reboot starring Mahershala Ali off the ground
- Blade faced setbacks since its 2019 announcement and was ultimately axed
- Feige is currently promoting Spider-Man: Brand New Day, which hits theaters July 31
Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige is opening up about one of the MCU’s most troubled projects.
During an interview on the Happy Sad Confused podcast, host Joshua Horowitz asked Feige, 53, how much time he’d spent in “therapy” talking about the long-delayed Blade reboot that was set to star Mahershala Ali.
“This poor project. We just need to get this done, Kevin. How are you doing?” Horowitz asked, to which Feige jokingly replied, “Should we get into a therapy session?”
The Marvel Studios head admitted that he was proud to have been able to include the original Blade, played by Wesley Snipes, in a recent Marvel movie, before candidly sharing his thoughts on Ali’s version.
“I’m feeling very excited that we got Wesley back for a time in Deadpool & Wolverine and like a gigantic loser and failure that we didn’t get off the ground with Mahershala,” Feige admitted.
Marvel first announced Ali, 52, as the new Blade during its San Diego Comic-Con presentation in 2019, when the two-time Oscar winner made a surprise appearance onstage wearing a Blade hat.
Blade was previously brought to the big screen by Snipes, 63, who starred as the vampire hunter in 1998’s Blade, followed by Blade II in 2002 and Blade: Trinity in 2004. Snipes also made a surprise return as Blade in 2024’s Deadpool & Wolverine, marking his first appearance as the character in two decades.
The reboot was originally slated to usher the iconic vampire hunter into the Marvel Cinematic Universe, but the film was plagued by setbacks, including multiple release date delays, changes in directors and writers and extensive redevelopment.
It was eventually removed from Disney’s theatrical release calendar in fall 2024.
“We didn’t want to simply just put a leather outfit on him and have him start killing vampires. It had to be unique,” Feige previously explained in July 2025. “It fell into the time when we started pulling back and saying, ‘Only accept insanely great.’ And it wasn’t ‘insanely great’ at the time.”
He continued, “We didn’t feel like, as we often do, we can have a good script and make it a great script through production. We didn’t feel confident that we could do that on Blade, and we didn’t want to do that to Mahershala Ali and didn’t want to do that to us.”
Ali, for his part, has continued to express his interest in helming the role, telling Variety in June 2025 that he was still “ready.”
“Call Marvel,” he said at the time. “I’m ready. Let them know I’m ready.”
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Feige spoke to Horowitz as part of press for Spider-Man: Brand New Day, which is out in theaters on July 31, followed by Avengers: Doomsday five months later on Dec. 18.
Read the original article on People
