Overview
- Bassam Tariq says he spent roughly a year and a half developing Mahershala Ali's Blade and confirmed his version would have been partly set in the 1920s with Ruth E. Carter designing period costumes.
- Preproduction advanced far enough that Tariq moved his family to Atlanta before the project stalled and he left in 2022.
- Mahershala Ali officially walked away from the Blade project in July and has said he has moved on from playing the character in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
- Tariq says working inside Marvel taught him to build audience 'cheer moments' and to shape action so it serves story and character rather than exist as spectacle alone.
- Tariq and Ali reunited on Your Mother, Your Mother, Your Mother, which premiered at TIFF and let Ali use action training developed for the unmade Blade while Marvel's Blade reboot remains in limbo.