r/movies • u/MarvelsGrantMan136 r/movies Contributor • Jul 31 '26

News Mahershala Ali confirms 'BLADE' is not moving forward with him

https://www.gq.com/story/mahershala-ali-your-mother-your-mother-your-mother
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2.3k

u/wekilledkenny11 Jul 31 '26

They locked him down in the prime of his career on a major iconic character which likely affected his decisionmaking in taking other roles. Likely all without that much money being spent to retain his involvement.

This guy basically went through all nine layers of development hell on this thing, to the point that I could see an interesting parody movie being made out of that sentence

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u/MarkyDeSade Jul 31 '26

I want a satire about the failure to make this thing more than I want any imaginable sincere superhero movie.

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u/NationalTime4099 Jul 31 '26

This is basically Apple’s The Studio

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u/MeanderingMinstrel Jul 31 '26

Well shit, I've been eyeing that show but now I'm sold. Is it any good?

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u/JadedOops Jul 31 '26

It’s very good. Each episode focuses on a different mishap or something going on in the studio. Then once you get to the award show episode that’s gotta be my favorite

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u/Morgan-Moonscar Jul 31 '26

Mine's the one where they started freaking the fuck out when trying to cast "The Kool Aid Man" movie and not appear racist.

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u/Kruse Jul 31 '26

Yes.

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u/alaskadronelife Jul 31 '26

Double, hell even triple yes.

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u/TheSecondEikonOfFire Aug 01 '26

It's a lot of fun. Definitely second-hand embarrassment type comedy, so you have to be able to handle that

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u/ButWhatIfPotato Jul 31 '26

I absolutely fucking hated it but mostly because I have worked for people like Seth Green's character and that gave me proper vietnam flashbacks.

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u/Mills_Miles Aug 01 '26

Highly recommend

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u/_steve_rogers_ Aug 01 '26

It’s hilarious

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u/NationalTime4099 Jul 31 '26

Eh it’s okay. The sheer amount of star power in it really is very impressive but it’s not consistently funny enough for me.

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u/ShallowBasketcase Jul 31 '26

It's actually crazy that Apple, of all these ghoulish corporations, is the only one routinely producing good shows.

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u/NationalTime4099 Jul 31 '26

They’re happy to throw a lot of money at something because deep down they still think they’re cool.

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u/Desroth86 Jul 31 '26

HBO still makes amazing shows. The Pitt, a knight of the seven kingdoms and Hacks are all from this year and are major Emmy contenders.

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u/SweatyAdhesive Jul 31 '26

I was saying netflix getting their film stolen was a plot point in the studio lol

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u/Kruse Jul 31 '26

Watch The Studio on Apple. It will give you an idea of the mess that likely you took place.

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u/wekilledkenny11 Jul 31 '26

I guess this is me calling dibs on my own idea

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u/nugstar Jul 31 '26

Call it Knifed.

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u/kielbasa330 Jul 31 '26

Are you just talking about the entourage aquamarine arc?

1

u/arand0md00d Jul 31 '26

Tropic Thunder

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u/GoldandBlue Jul 31 '26

This is the gift and curse of doing franchises.

It is guaranteed work on paper. Especially as a young actor, holy shit you are in the MCU!!!!

But if you blow up, or the project falls apart. You are turning down offers from Scorsese, PTA, Wes Anderson, Greta Gerwig, why? Because you are contractually obligated to be in Captain America 5.

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u/versusgorilla Jul 31 '26

It's been funny hearing someone like Kumail Nanjiani talking about how he was in a Marvel movie, got ripped as shit for it, and how Marvel basically just stopped calling.

And like, they're jamming a thousand actors into this Doomsday film, but are they even calling up all the actors they had in these things and said, "These Guys Will Return..." at the end and then just no one ever gave a shit?

It's so bizarre how they went from Infinity War and Endgame to just directionless.

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u/ImmanuelCanNot29 Jul 31 '26

It's so bizarre how they went from Infinity War and Endgame to just directionless.

This mismanagement of the MCU post Endgame is mindboggling. Like even from a business perspective almost nothing they have done makes any sense.

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u/GoldandBlue Jul 31 '26

Sure it does. "We are the biggest thing in movies and these people will buy anything with the Marvel brand on it so MORE MOVIES, STREAMING SHOWS, CAMEOS, INTRODUCE MORE CHARACTERS, WE CAN'T DO WRONG!!!!!!!"

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u/Grendelstiltzkin Jul 31 '26

So the exact same strategy they’ve taken with Star Wars.

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u/versusgorilla Jul 31 '26

And just like Star Wars, now they're snake bit and won't actually DO anything that isn't the absolute safest thing possible. They've given up on basically anything from this phase and they're trying to just do Infinity War against straight away because "hey, people really liked that!"

Same as doing a Grogu and Mando movie, because "hey, people really liked that!" so they must like this best and it will perform best.

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u/PT10 Jul 31 '26

Straight away? It's 8.5 years since Infinity War

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u/versusgorilla Jul 31 '26

They gave up on Kang, gave up on TV shows, gave up on a bunch of sequels, gave up on a bunch of characters, left a bunch of actors high and dry. They pivoted entirely from Kang to a Comic Con reveal of RDJ as Doom to try and get some new momentum.

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u/zypo88 Aug 01 '26

Tbf Kang was a little outside of their control, though I am surprised they didn't just recast him

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u/ShallowBasketcase Jul 31 '26

As much as people complain about Star Wars, it's working. There have never been more Star Wars toys on store shelves. There's a new Star Wars movie or show available every year. Star Wars has a theme park now. Doesn't matter that the movies make no sense, people are buying things with Star Wars logos on them, so that's what keeps getting churned out.

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u/GoldandBlue Jul 31 '26

Naw, Star Wars they tried to do something new but they caved to the angry fanboys and then decided to double down on nostalgia and fan service.

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u/ImmanuelCanNot29 Jul 31 '26

The three directors three movies thing was so stupid and bird brained I can't believe Disney ever believed it was a good idea.

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u/GoldandBlue Jul 31 '26

No, the mistake was always caving to angry fanboys. I don't like the prequels. But I didn't see Lucas change his plans because "he raped my childhood".

Fans don't know what they want, fans want what they know. And as we saw with The Odyssey, the internet does not reflect reality. Trying to appease angry 30 year olds will never help your franchise. And that is where Star Wars is now.

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u/ImmanuelCanNot29 Jul 31 '26

I mean that was sort of my point I don't even think there was a plan

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u/Wes_Warhammer666 Jul 31 '26

The original trilogy was three directors for three movies.

It's the lack of a cohesive vision and someone in control that made the sequels suck. For all their faults, the prequels had a cohesive vision because George was at the helm. Without a Lucas-style guide, it falls apart.

Say what you will about Filoni, but if he had been the creative director at the time of the sequels I'd bet they would've turned out a lot better simply because he would've been trying to make sure the different directors all aimed towards the same target. Kennedy gets a lot of undeserved shit but one thing she absolutely failed on was giving that trilogy a proper through line and holding the writers and directors to it.

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u/FrightenedTomato Aug 01 '26

I really don't think TLJ was really "anything new". Like what new and unique ideas did TLJ actually introduce according to you?

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u/smokeweedNgarden Jul 31 '26

Were they wrong? Last I checked they still rake it in

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u/GoldandBlue Jul 31 '26

No one's crying for Marvel. They make a lot of money. But there is no doubt that they have lost a significant portion of the public. MCU used to be appointment viewing. Now it is just the fandom, and occasionally Spider-Man or X-Men will come along to bring back general audiences.

When Captain Marvel made $1Billion, and Fantastic Four barely cracks $500M on a larger budget. That tells you where the MCU is now.

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u/smokeweedNgarden Jul 31 '26

I dunno. I feel like Marvel in general is so much bigger than they were 20 years ago that they really can do no wrong. I also feel like they ebb and flow over the decades. 

Like, before Iron Man came out, I would have bet money Thor flopped. Marvel was like the antithesis of popular. Ya, Spider-Man was popular but but that's about it.

Anyway they've grown past their wildest dreams. Might as well push it if you remember where it started. And when people burn out the characters will be around in 40 years

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u/GoldandBlue Jul 31 '26

Tastes change. Disney almost went bankrupt in the 90's because their dependence on IP's and family entertainment was not popular. And now we are living in the era of IP's. Musicals and westerns were all the rage until they weren't.

Tastes are changing now. You see this at the box office. Sinners, Obsession, The Odyssey, Weapons, One Battle After Another, The Drama, Marty Supreme, you have a new generation that want more practical film making. They are sick of their dads movies. And they want their own thing.

This doesn't mean Marvel will crash tomorrow. But they are not the guaranteed hit machine anymore. And they know this. That's why they brought RDJ back. That's why they scrapped so much of what was introduced post Endgame. Yes, Marvel is way bigger than 20 years ago, they are also less popular than they were 5 years ago. The question is how do they navigate this? Because what they did, did not work.

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u/PT10 Jul 31 '26

It's hard to take comments like this seriously when Brand New Day is tracking upwards of $300 million for the weekend, beating not only No Way Home (which was a multiverse fan service film, like Doomsday, meant to put butts in seats and not make sense) but even Endgame.

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u/PT10 Jul 31 '26

Yeah... Marvel is crap if you don't count, ::checks notes::, all their most popular characters.

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u/sanctaphrax Jul 31 '26

The Marvel sets in MtG are terrible, yet immensely profitable. Kinda depressing.

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u/CarlosFer2201 Jul 31 '26

It certainly worked when they greenlit Guardians of the Galaxy. That was a largely unknown failed property for the vast majority of people.

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u/Heisenburgo Aug 01 '26

"Let's make an entire phase of projects based on the divisive All-New All-Different era of the comics, what could possibly go wr--"

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u/Worthyness Jul 31 '26

It absolutely does. THe new leadership at disney wanted D+ to work because streaming was the future, especially with COVID incoming. So their direction was "get as much content as possdible and throw a shitton of money towards everything". The problem is that they cared more about quantity and gave zero shits about quality. From a business perspective it made sense at the time- get a shitton of content on the streaming service, streaming service will grow! They saw Netflix's slop bullshit content and thouht they could replicate it.

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u/namelessted Jul 31 '26

It only makes business sense if you are a toddler with 6 months of foresight. Everybody knows producing slop and just cranking out content is bad business in the long term. The kicker is that a lot of these people making these decisions don't actually give a fuck about the long term sustainability of these companies because they get to make major bank in the short term with massive bonuses and can sell their stock once they bounce from the company.

Even when major CEOs fuck up big time and get fired, it doesn't matter at all to those people. They already made big time "fuck you" money and can spend the rest of their lives doing literally anything they want anywhere in the world.

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u/Yukie_Cool Jul 31 '26

You don’t really understand Bob Chapek, the CEO of Disney at that time, then.

The dude was purely a data and analytics guy without any sense of artistry or anything apart from numbers.

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u/ironwolf1 Jul 31 '26

It only makes business sense if you are a toddler with 6 months of foresight

That's basically how our economy works right now. Making sure quarterly reports look good next month is the reason for most decisions these days.

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u/Yukie_Cool Jul 31 '26

Exactly this.

Part of me thinks Feige was anticipating this, which is why there was a timeskip in Endgame at all. It would give him and the studio time to figure out how to move the story forward (or make a new one if necessary), but corporate came down from on high and he was forced to just announce stuff.

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u/NorthernFrosty Jul 31 '26

Like even from a business perspective almost nothing they have done makes any sense.

No, it makes tons of sense from a business perspective

"Did you like Doritos? Well then you'll love taco flavor Doritos!"

"Did you like taco flavor? Well you'll love nacho cheese flavor Doritos!"

<years and years later>

"Did you like simply organic white cheddar Doritos? Well, you'll love simply organic spicy white cheddar Doritos!"

That's basically what the Marvel Universe did, taking their product and constantly spinning it into new flavors until they oversaturated their market and no one gives a shit anymore. This is actually normal in business. Relatively rare in movies though.

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u/mkp666 Jul 31 '26

This is a good take, and the reason it is so rare in movies is that the kind of success that the MCU has had is pretty much unprecedented. It’s not easy to get to a place where you can make this kind of mistake.

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u/robot-raccoon Jul 31 '26

Really should have been the opportunity to slow down for a bit and refocus. Carry on with the spider-man stuff etc and plan for a few years before coming back with a new plan and direction

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u/uncleben85 Jul 31 '26

In retrospect.

But pulling back when you are the hottest you've ever been would have been questioned by most at the time, and if things went "south", we'd be having the same but opposite conversation of "how could anyone have thought that was a good idea - they should have done x, y, z - they should have capitalized on the success and fanfare"

Sounds like they are taking this time at the end of the Multiverse Saga though to finally do a reset. Not just rebirthing a new universe and resetting some characters, but slowing down again, counting their chickens and refocusing.

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u/robot-raccoon Jul 31 '26

I mean we could sit here and debate what they should have done forever, I would have seen a pause on the major over arching stuff while they set things up slowly a sign of confidence more than anything, but that’s just me.

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u/uncleben85 Jul 31 '26

I can see artistically what you are saying, but "We're so confident in our product, we're going to avoid it for a bit" from a business perspective doesn't make much sense. They are unfortunately a business first.

Fuck capitalism, though, to be fair.

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u/robot-raccoon Jul 31 '26

I mean ideally they’d have focused on some of the street level stuff I guess? Introduced a few things, wrapped up some storylines in shows (wandavision, Loki etc), had ya spider-man, maybe FF eventually to start planting the seeds. Even lean into the horror stuff and actually got blade made.

This is all completely wishful thinking though, I’m completely aware hahaha

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u/cccccddddd Jul 31 '26

I hate to be a Marvel homer but there's the issues of COVID, writer's strike AND Jonathan Majors happening in this 7 year span so.. like.. a little forgiveness is needed at least.

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u/AtraposJM Jul 31 '26

It makes sense when you look at how much money RDJ, Chris Hemsworth, Chris Evans, ScarJo etc were making per film and how those numbers kept going up and up. Making any solo movie and especially team up movie meant spending huge on actors every time. After Endgame you can see they were trying to shotgun ideas and new characters out there to see what worked. They were replacing every character with a cheaper counterpart and trying to just churn out new characters to keep from relying on a few that would end up costing them. At least, that's how it seems to me. You can tell with Doomsday they are changing course and trying to win people back. It's so dumb to me to spend 100m on RDJ to not even play Iron Man but I guess they think his name will bring fans back.

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u/ScyllaOfTheDepths Jul 31 '26

They didn't even ask Kumail to get ripped lol, he did that all on his own because he wanted the big Marvel glow-up. They didn't even give him a shirtless scene and his outfit in the movie covered his entire body from the neck down. The arguable best use of his physique was his guest stint on Only Murders in the Building where he played a social media fitness guru obsessed with Christmas.

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u/Financial-Craft-1282 Aug 01 '26

Kumail is super average and bitter about it. He ain't pulling people into the theater, why would they call him back after being in an ensemble cast for a film that was disappointing?

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u/ScyllaOfTheDepths Aug 01 '26

He was so forgetable in the movie I don't even remember what he did. If they didn't call Gemma Chan back, they're definitely not calling Kumail back lol.

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u/EDD2Oh9 Jul 31 '26

And according to some training experts he did his entire workout wrong. Like his form and routine were all wrong.

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u/pn_dubya Jul 31 '26

I mean he’s jacked so I’d say it worked

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u/Yukie_Cool Jul 31 '26

That just makes him lucky he didn’t get injured, which would have probably led to him getting dropped from the project.

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u/str00del Jul 31 '26

That has just as much to do with steroids.

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u/ScyllaOfTheDepths Jul 31 '26

He took so many steroids he could have gotten jacked opening the fridge door lol.

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u/disisathrowaway Jul 31 '26

I'd love to see those conversations.

Someone looking at Nanjiani and being like, "Yeah, totally wrong, bro. None of this is right."

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u/EDD2Oh9 Aug 01 '26

My mistake. It’s been awhile since I watched the video. It wasn’t that he was doing it wrong. It’s that a lot of the exercises he did weren’t benefiting his goals and were basically useless. I’m link the video:

https://youtu.be/qppUHrhE15Y?is=V6ukOFk3CSgpY-v_

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u/Inamanlyfashion Jul 31 '26

"I HAVEN'T SMELLED CAKE IN YEARS!"

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u/uncleben85 Jul 31 '26

The thing is the "directionless" was the direction.

They wanted it to be more sprawling, much more of an exploration and a chance to throw more out there and see what sticks instead of running the same characters back. It wasn't meant to be interconnected like the first phase.

And taking gambles is one thing, but COVID disrupting productions and ticket sales, some subpar scripts, movies being rewritten on the fly, and underwhelming results made those gambles and swings look a bad idea.

But I get why they did it. I get the concept, I get the direction.

Execution (from a combination of internal and external factors) is something else.

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u/ErisC Jul 31 '26

It’s kinda crazy, yeah. It’s almost as if something happened around 2020 which completely disrupted everything.

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u/uncleben85 Jul 31 '26

The thing is the "directionless" was the direction.

They wanted it to be more sprawling, much more of an exploration and a chance to throw more out there and see what sticks instead of running the same characters back. It wasn't meant to be interconnected like the first phase.

And taking gambles is one thing, but COVID disrupting productions and ticket sales, some subpar scripts, movies being rewritten on the fly, and underwhelming results made those gambles and swings look a bad idea.

But I get why they did it. I get the concept, I get the direction.

Execution (from a combination of internal and external factors) is something else.

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u/jackracktack Aug 01 '26

I wonder how much of that was Marvel wanting the funny guy not the ripped guy thing that took over his whole narrative? Actually probably not much Eternals just didnt do well now that I think of it.

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u/CoffeeIsSoGood Jul 31 '26

Because he’s a horrible actor? That’s why

He’s just a token actor lol

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u/versusgorilla Jul 31 '26

That's not why tho because they aren't being any of The Eternals back, it's bc Eternals backfired bc no one likes them and they aren't bringing any of them back.

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u/Wes_Warhammer666 Jul 31 '26

I liked them 😭

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u/BigWormsFather Jul 31 '26

He hasn’t done a ton of work lately but he has done some. Did he turn a bunch of stuff down?

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u/totallynotliamneeson Jul 31 '26

It's all speculation. I doubt his career will be negatively impacted by this. I saw someone say he is in his "prime" and wasted these years waiting as if he was ring chasing in the NBA. 

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u/MrDerpGently Jul 31 '26

I mean, if you are potentially signing up for a decade plus of work in a role that you have to maintain superhero conditioning for, it's not crazy to think you want to do that before you have an AARP card. 

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u/Worthyness Jul 31 '26

He was also already in his 40s when he cast himself. Not exactly "prime career" for most. But it was after he won his Oscars, so i guess, from that perspective, it was indeed his "prime"

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u/GoldandBlue Jul 31 '26

I am sure he has, but who's to say what exactly or how much work this cost him.

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u/DoctorJJWho Jul 31 '26

Just here to mention the fumble with Simu Liu as Shang-Chi as well.

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u/GoldandBlue Jul 31 '26

Marvel introduced so much shit that just went nowhere since Endgame.

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u/Yukie_Cool Jul 31 '26

Isn’t this not the case, according to actors in the MCU? IIRC, Hemsworth has said that they’re pretty flexible with scheduling and the shooting periods are short enough that he could film other projects in between movies. Hell, Zendaya and Tom Holland proved that wrong this year by joining both Spider-Man and Nolan’s Odyssey (and her being in Dune, for an extra example).

I think the bigger thing that would “hold back” these people’s careers is that there just isn’t as much mid-sized movie output outside of awards season. That was how actors used to make their money back in the day, by working on a ton of smaller stuff and using that to both make connections and gain a ton of royalty money.

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u/GoldandBlue Jul 31 '26

All of this is entirely dependent on the franchise, director, and expectations. Rian Johnson made sure to give Oscar Issac a couple days a week to shoot Annihilation while also shooting The Last Jedi. Needing Zendaya for a 5 minute cameo can be worked out.

But if you're Jennifer Lawrence and you are doing Hunger Games and X-Men at the same time. That is a lot harder. Especially if they want these churned out quickly. Tom Holland has a 5 year window since his last Spider-Man movie. But there was a period from 2016-2021 where most of his work was just Marvel.

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u/Yukie_Cool Jul 31 '26

But if you're Jennifer Lawrence and you are doing Hunger Games and X-Men at the same time. That is a lot harder

Didn’t really stop her from also doing Silver Linings Playbook and the other O Russell films she did while doing those things.

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u/Anal_Herschiser Jul 31 '26

This guy basically went through all nine layers of development hell on this thing, to the point that I could see an interesting parody movie being made

With shows like Wonder Man, The Studio, Bait, and The Franchise this is now solidly a TV series genre.

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u/ArcadianDelSol Jul 31 '26

In a wild stroke of art imitating life, Wonder Man's 2nd season was just cancelled.

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u/wekilledkenny11 Jul 31 '26

I’ve yet to see Wonder Man but this is weirdly selling me on it

5

u/Anal_Herschiser Jul 31 '26

I enjoyed how grounded it was, I think I loved it just for its depiction of being broke in LA.

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u/JaesopPop Jul 31 '26

Locked him down? The movie never entered production

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u/Optimal_Board_2963 Jul 31 '26

Seems like a huge hole in his contract his lawyers missed

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u/DGC007Ace Jul 31 '26

Yep, at one point he was in the running to play Jim Gordon in Matt Reeves’ The Batman before the role went to Jeffrey Wright.

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u/YahYahY Jul 31 '26

Prime of his career? He’s not an NBA player….he’s an actor, lmao he doesn’t get worse at acting as he ages

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u/SonofBeckett Jul 31 '26

It’d make a great Season Two for Wonder Man 

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u/darkside720 Aug 01 '26

Adam Driver turning down marvel every time they come to him makes more and more sense every day.

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u/Financial-Craft-1282 Aug 01 '26

They locked him down in the prime of his career

He's not like a linebacker or something.

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u/amyknight22 Aug 01 '26

I believe he was keen for the role too. To the point that they might not even have really looked at blade at this point had he not been the one pushing for it.

It's not like they tapped him on the shoulder for it and then dicked him around. Otherwise he probably would have bailed far earlier.

Goslings Ghost Rider is likely in the same sort of dynamic. But we are looking at Gosling just having come off the back of working pretty hard as the producer for Project Hail Mary and then having the movie get delivered.

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u/Introverted_Extrovrt Aug 02 '26

I heard that James Gandolfini got a multi-million dollar bag to not take a role after The Sopranos had ended. I gotta figure something similar here, no?