'I am feeling like a gigantic loser': Kevin Feige expresses regret over Marvel's Blade reboot failure
Marvel chief Kevin Feige has told of his disappointment about the studio's failure to get the planned Blade reboot - which was due to star Mahershala Ali - off the ground.
Kevin Feige feels "like a gigantic loser" following the failure of the Blade reboot.
The Marvel chief has confirmed that plans for a movie starring Mahershala Ali as the vampire slayer are dead in the water, as he expressed disappointment at the studio's inability to get the project "off the ground".
Feige told the Happy Sad Confused podcast: "I am feeling like a gigantic loser and failure that we didn't get off the ground with Mahershala."
Marvel first announced the new Blade movie – which was set to follow the late 1990s/early 2000s trilogy that featured Wesley Snipes in the lead role – in 2019, with Bassam Tariq attached to direct.
However, the filmmaker dropped out just two months before shooting was due to begin in September 2022 – whilst numerous screenwriters came and went during the development process.
Yann Demange signed up to direct the movie but dropped out himself in June 2024.
Feige revealed last year that the delays to Blade had been caused as a result of Marvel's "over-expansion" into Disney+ content, which meant that "quantity trumped quality" for a period.
The 53-year-old movie producer said: "We didn't want to simply just put a leather outfit on him and have him start killing vampires. It had to be unique.
"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.
"We didn't feel like we often do, you 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 and didn't want to do that to us."
Mia Goth was set to appear in the Blade reboot as villain Lilith but explained last year that she had been kept in the dark over plans for the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) picture.
The 32-year-old actress told the Happy Sad Confused podcast: "I don’t know what’s going on with that.
"I think that they want to make it, and it’s such an important film for them that they’re taking their time with it. I really don’t have any information. I don’t know why it’s taken the time that it has, but we will see.
"The furthest that it got with me … they flew [me] to Atlanta, and we did a chemistry test between Mahershala and I, and we did a costume fitting and a wig fitting, and I was very excited about the direction it was going. It was very cool.
"And Mahershala had such an interesting take on it, and he was great. And then it just unravelled from there, unfortunately."
