ⓒCourtesy of Marvel

Actor Mahershala Ali has announced he will no longer play Blade, seven years after being first mentioned.

The actor discussed his new film “Your Mother Your Mother Your Mother,” featuring an interview piece in GQ, with filmmaker Bassim Tariq, the collaborator on “Mogul Mowgli.” Ali and Tariq were initially planned to collaborate on “Blade“.

Tariq departed from the project abruptly in September 2022, shortly before production started, and the project faced years of struggle with little advancement as multiple writers failed to complete the script

Recently, Marvel Studios’ chief Kevin Feige remarked on the podcast “Happy Sad Confused” that “I am beginning to feel like an enormous loser and failure that we didn’t make it with Mahershala.”

Ali mentions that he has officially moved on from the unrealized role. He tells the magazine:

“For whatever reason, that project is not for me. If they wanted to do it, we would’ve done it. So I have to move on, and I have moved on. [‘Your Mother’] feels very much in alignment with the type of work I want to be known for. I don’t really want to be known for remakes. I’d love to do original work that resonates with people and impacts them in unique ways. So, I’m good. Again, 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.

When I look at this and Blade, I couldn’t have done both, and the reason this even exists is because that project fell apart and Bassam had the time, space, energy, and focus to go and write this and then re-approach me. And I was able to use those skills that I had been working on for over a year training for Blade. In that way, I feel creatively redeemed on some level, just in my own journey between me, myself, and I. But I feel ready to move on from the Blade questions. Those questions are for them. They didn’t want to do it, so they should answer that question.”

The film “Your Mother Your Mother Your Mother” is set to debut in cinemas on September 25th and will also premiere at the Toronto Film Festival. Ali plays a recently widowed and devoutly religious hitman who journeys desperately across Houston to safeguard his offspring.