Mia Goth says Marvel’s long-delayed Blade reboot “just unraveled” after she had already flown to Atlanta for chemistry reads and fittings, a fresh sign of how stalled the studio’s vampire thriller remains six years after its announcement.
Speaking on Josh Horowitz’s Happy Sad Confused podcast, in comments picked up by Deadline, Goth explained that she “doesn’t know what’s going on” with the project. She said she auditioned, then tested opposite star Mahershala Ali, followed by a costume and wig fitting. “I was very excited in the direction it was going… and then it just unraveled from there, unfortunately,” she said, adding that she believes Marvel still wants to make the film and calls it important to the studio.
Blade has faced a choppy development cycle since Marvel announced Ali as the Daywalker at San Diego Comic-Con in 2019. The film has gone through at least two directors, Bassam Tariq and Yann Demange, and multiple writers, including Beau DeMayo and Michael Green, with production start dates repeatedly pushed back. The release shifted from 2023 to 2024, then to February 2025, before Disney finally pulled it from the calendar in October 2024.
Behind the scenes, the creative direction has swung between versions. One script set the story in the 1920s, with extensive period costumes later repurposed for Ryan Coogler’s Sinners, while trade reporting described an iteration that sidelined Blade in favour of a female lead, prompting concern from Ali’s camp. Writer David S. Goyer, who worked on the Wesley Snipes films, has publicly questioned why a character he sees as a “relatively simple story” has become such a problem for the studio.
Ali has alternated between encouragement and exasperation. In June he told one interviewer to “call Marvel, I’m ready,” stressing that the project’s fate rests with the studio. More recently, during a Vogue video chat, he shut down a playful question about his Marvel work with a dry “leave me out of it,” signalling fatigue with constant Blade queries while still remaining attached to the role.
Marvel executives say the film remains in development, yet there is no director, no start date and no new release slot. In the meantime, the character has surfaced in side projects such as Marvel Zombies and a cameo from Wesley Snipes in Deadpool & Wolverine, keeping the brand alive while the Ali-led reboot stalls. Goth’s account of a near-start that collapsed underscores how close this version came before slipping back into limbo.
