For years, comic book fans have wondered about the fate of Marvel Studios’ highly anticipated Blade reboot. First announced in 2019 with two-time Oscar winner Mahershala Ali attached to star, the project entered a notorious development cycle filled with script rewrites, production delays, and director exits.

Now, Ali is officially putting the speculation to rest.

In a new interview with GQ, the 52-year-old actor confirmed that he has officially moved on from Blade. Instead of dwelling on what could have been, Ali is channeling his energy and over a year’s worth of intense physical martial arts training into an original, high-stakes action thriller with director Bassam Tariq: Your Mother, Your Mother, Your Mother.

Ali didn’t mince words when addressing why the long-stalled Marvel project never made it across the finish line.

“I didn’t feel great about the fact that things finished the way that they did [with Blade]; I like seeing things through,” Ali told GQ. But when asked directly about the studio’s inability to launch the film despite having massive capital and talent under contract, the actor offered a pragmatic, boundary-setting response.

“The best way I can answer this question is, when I look at what is for me, it was either this or that—and I’ll take this. No offense to them,” Ali explained. “I’ve been doing this professionally for pushing 30 years now, and one thing I’ve learned is that what is for you is for you and what is not is not. For whatever reason, that project is not for me. If they wanted to do it, we would’ve done it.”

Ali is ready to stop answering questions about the superhero franchise altogether. “So I have to move on, and I have moved on… Those questions are for them. They didn’t want to do it, so they should answer that question.”

Ali’s comments come on the heels of Marvel Studios President Kevin Feige’s remarks regarding the failed reboot. Speaking on the Happy Sad Confused podcast with Josh Horowitz, Feige took direct responsibility for the project’s inability to take flight despite Ali’s long-standing patience.

“I am feeling like a gigantic loser and failure that we didn’t get off the ground with Mahershala,” Feige admitted. “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.”

While Blade ultimately dissolved, the intense physical preparation Ali undertook for over a year did not go to waste. In fact, it became the foundation for his leading role as Latif, a devout hitman fighting across Houston to protect his children in Bassam Tariq’s upcoming Amazon MGM Studios thriller Your Mother, Your Mother, Your Mother.

Tariq, who was originally attached to direct Blade before stepping down during its pre-production delays, kept his creative alignment with Ali intact. While drafting his new original screenplay, Tariq specifically kept Ali’s athleticism and martial artistry in mind.

“I didn’t even tell Mahershala this until recently, but in the earliest drafts of this, I didn’t even have a name for the character—I just wrote ‘Mahershala,'” Tariq revealed to GQ. “Because I’ve been imagining, how do you carry dignity and grief, and have grace under fire? It’s a tough thing… Mahershala is an athlete, and I saw the way he uses a sword on Blade. The first time he was doing sword practice on Blade, the stuff coming back was incredible. Then, here, it was exceptional to see the way Mahershala rose to that occasion.”

For Ali, transferring those hard-earned physical skills directly into Tariq’s original script offered a sense of artistic fulfillment.

“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,” Ali shared. “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.”

Beyond the physical transition, Ali noted that taking the lead in Your Mother, Your Mother, Your Mother aligns far more closely with his broader artistic philosophy as a veteran actor.

“Your Mother, Your Mother, Your Mother feels very much in alignment with the type of work I want to be known for,” Ali reflected. “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.”

Your Mother, Your Mother, Your Mother hits select theaters on September 25, before expanding wide in October. Check out the trailer below.