Blade reboot dead as Mahershala Ali says Marvel 'didn't want to do it'; DC's Booster Gold also scrapped

Marvel Studios' attempt to bring Blade into the Marvel Cinematic Universe with Mahershala Ali has ended after seven years of development, with the two-time Oscar winner saying he has "moved on" from the vampire-hunting antihero. The project, first announced at the 2019 San Diego Comic-Con, went through at least five writers and lost directors Bassam Tariq and Yann Demange before stalling permanently.

“If they wanted to do it, we would've done it. So I have to move on, and I have moved on.”

What went wrong with Blade

The reboot was trapped in a cycle of false starts, script rewrites, and director departures. Ali made a brief off-screen voice cameo in the 2021 post-credits sequence of Eternals, but the film itself never got past pre-production. Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige addressed the failure earlier this month, telling trade press that he felt "like a gigantic loser and failure" for not getting the project off the ground with Ali.

Ali was more pointed, placing the blame squarely on Marvel and its parent company Disney. He noted that he had been under contract and the studio had "billions of dollars," yet the movie never materialised. The actor said he does not want to be known for remakes and prefers to pursue original work.

Ali finds a different path

One outcome of the Blade collapse was a creative partnership with director Bassam Tariq, who had been attached to direct the Marvel film. The two instead collaborated on Tariq's revenge thriller Your Mother Your Mother Your Mother, which is set to premiere at the Toronto film festival. Ali told GQ that after spending over a year training for Blade, he was able to use those skills in the new project. He described the experience as feeling "creatively redeemed on some level."

“I didn't feel great about the fact that things finished the way that they did; I like seeing things through. I'm so grateful that we were able to see this through and find what I believe is the right thing together.”

Booster Gold also cancelled

On the same day Ali's comments were published, writer David Jenkins confirmed on Threads that his Booster Gold series for HBO is no longer moving forward. Jenkins, the creator of Our Flag Means Death, had been attached to write the pilot since at least July 2025, with plans for him to show-run the DC adaptation.

“My Booster Gold won't be moving forward. Can't improve on Mahershala's lovely statement so I'll just apply it here as well.”

Booster Gold was among the projects unveiled by DC Studios co-chiefs James Gunn and Peter Safran in January 2023. The character, Michael Jon Carter, is a former college football player from Gotham City who is expelled for gambling, becomes a superhero, and joins the Justice League while annoying peers with his obsession with fame and wealth. Safran had described him as "a loser from the future who uses his basic future technology to come back to today to pretend to be a superhero," and Gunn called the series a story about "a superhero's imposter syndrome."

What remains on DC's slate

DC Studios issued no comment on the Booster Gold cancellation, and it is unclear whether the project might be revived with a different creative team. The studio still has several projects in various stages of development, including The Brave and the Bold, an on-again-off-again Sgt. Rock movie, and Paradise Lost, which Gunn said in April was in "extreme development." The Clayface film arrives in October 2026, and The Batman Part II is scheduled for 2028. Lanterns, another DC series, is set to debut this August.