In 2019, Marvel Studios President Kevin Feige wrapped up the studio's Hall H panel by announcing that Mahershala Ali would lead a new Blade movie. The project went through multiple writers and directors and, even in a Saga defined by quantity over quality, it somehow never happened.
Feige has said he feels like a "gigantic loser and failure" for failing to get Blade off the ground, while Ali has since confirmed that he's done with both the Daywalker and the MCU.
The Oscar-winner has reteamed with one-time Blade director Bassam Tariq for Your Mother Your Mother Your Mother. In that, the Luke Cage star will showcase some of the skills he acquired while training for the unmade Marvel Studios movie, and if it proves a success, it will be more egg on Marvel Studios' face.
In an interview with The Wrap, Tariq confirmed that he spent a year and a half developing Blade. The trade points out that the filmmaker revealed plans for the movie to be at least "partially" set in the 1920s and that he'd enlisted Ruth Carter as costume designer. She eventually took some of Blade's unmade costumes and repurposed them for Ryan Coogler's Sinners.
"The system was cool, and we were a part of it, but you knew that there was somebody else that’s running this thing. You’re there on their time. It’s a different thing," Tariq said of working with Marvel Studios. "I think we both wanted to make a kick-ass action movie, and how do we do it in a way where the violence has weight, and it also changes story and character."
The director praised Feige for "always pushing things," but acknowledged that he rarely saw the executive. "I would see him in rooms and all that, and unfortunately, we didn’t get a lot of time together because his time was so stretched with so many projects."
The biggest lesson he learned from Feige was making "cheer moments" for the audience. "It was really cool to like understand that there are things that, when somebody’s taking time out of their life to watch your film, you want to honor that time. And I think that was something that I really felt like, 'Oh wow, they really care about that.'"
"I find that they’ve done a really incredible job of maintaining a core audience. That’s something that’s really commendable. And that’s something that I want to learn more about and learn to do as I build my own career."
The closest we came to seeing Blade in the MCU was ultimately Ali's voice cameo in Eternals' post-credits scene. Wesley Snipes reprised the role in Deadpool & Wolverine, and Marvel Zombies' Blade Knight—clearly based on Ali's appearance—was voiced by Todd Williams.
There have been rumours about Ali's Blade showing up in Avengers: Secret Wars, but it seems doubtful. As for Tariq's movie, it's been claimed that it was set to revolve around Blade training his daughter, Bloodline, with her becoming the MCU's new "Blade" in the present day.