'They Helped Pay For Our Movie, So Thank You': Marvel's Blade Might Be Scrapped, But Mahershala Ali Says He's Grateful He Got a Year of Free Training

Mahershala Ali has thanked Marvel for a year of free physical training, and said his prep time for the now-cancelled Blade helped pay for his new movie instead.

Ali is now set to star in Your Mother Your Mother Your Mother , an action thriller where he plays a hitman with a baby, written and directed by Bassam Tariq. Ali and Tariq met when the latter was set to direct Marvel's long-awaited Blade, though Tariq later departed the project amid its years of ongoing delays.

With Blade now scrapped, the pair have reteamed for this new action movie, which will finally put Ali's freshly-toned body to good use. And now, Ali has thanked Marvel for his time training to be Blade — saying it had allowed him to step into this project, already fit and ready.

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"It was a little more than a year," Ali said of his time training for Blade, in conversation with Deadline . "And actually I'm really grateful, they helped pay for our movie, so thank you. We wouldn't, we couldn't have afforded to... there's no way we could have [done] this film and I got to go train for a year. So at this point, I'm so grateful that they made a wonderful contribution to our film."

Asked yet again if Marvel's Blade project was dead, Ali replied:

"I'm done. I'm doing this and anything else moving forward. I'm over that, I'm done with that."

Marvel announced it was making Blade back in 2019 at San Diego Comic-Con, and confirmed that Ali would feature as a new version of its vampire hunter, previously played by Wesley Snipes. But, seven years later, the project is dead in the water, despite the previous enthusiasm from Ali to make it.

Back in July, Ali stated that he had moved on from the idea of Blade ever happening , and suggested that further questions about why it never happened should be asked directly of Marvel instead. "You had me under contract, they have billions of dollars, if they wanted to do the movie, we would've done the movie. So we're not doing the movie," Ali said. The same month, Marvel Studios boss Kevin Feige admitted he felt like a "gigantic loser and failure" over the project's collapse .

Feige previously admitted that Blade had gone through "three or four" different incarnations, two of which were period pieces, before the studio finally settled on a modern day adaptation. "We didn't feel like, as we often do, you can have a good script and make it a great script through production," Feige said. "We didn't feel confident that we could do that on Blade, and we didn't want to do that to Mahershala and didn't want to do that to us."

Still, it remains surprising just how close Blade got to full production, with a full wardrobe of clothes made for the film's supporting artists, which were ultimately sold on and used for Ryan Coogler's acclaimed Sinners. Mia Goth was cast and got as far as a wig fitting , meanwhile.

The question now is, will Marvel Studios find a replacement for Ali and push forward with a new take on Blade, or give up entirely? With Ryan Gosling confirmed to be playing Ghost Rider in a new MCU movie set for release in 2028, some believe Marvel Studios is setting up the introduction of the Midnight Sons, which would potentially open the door for Blade.

In the meantime, Your Mother Your Mother Your Mother launches in theaters on September 25.

Image credit: Gareth Cattermole/Getty Images for IMDb.

Tom Phillips is IGN's News Editor. You can reach Tom at tom_phillips@ign.com or find him on Bluesky @tomphillipseg.bsky.social