Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige has been candid this week about two of the franchise’s most discussed topics: the long-awaited live-action arrival of Miles Morales and the ongoing saga of the failed Blade reboot starring Mahershala Ali.
Speaking to Deadline, Feige confirmed that Marvel has concrete plans to bring Miles Morales into the MCU in live-action, though not until after Sony’s animated Spider-Verse trilogy wraps up. Spider-Man: Beyond the Spider-Verse, the final chapter in the animated franchise with Shameik Moore reprising the role, arrives in theaters June 18, 2027.
“We definitely have plans for a live-action Miles, and I think a live-action Spider-Man movie has this destiny: to add Miles sometime after the Spider-Verse series ends,” Feige said. He also pointed to a now-iconic moment in Spider-Man: No Way Home, when Jamie Foxx’s Electro declared “somewhere there’s bound to be a Black Spider-Man,” saying audiences worldwide immediately knew what it might mean. Feige added that he and producer Amy Pascal have already had extensive discussions about the next several Spider-Man films, with Pascal actively working on what comes next.
On the subject of Blade, Feige was far less upbeat. Speaking on the Happy Sad Confused podcast, the Marvel boss offered a rare moment of unfiltered candor about one of the studio’s most prolonged development disasters.
“I am feeling like a gigantic loser and failure that we didn’t get off the ground with Mahershala,” Feige said plainly.
Marvel first announced the Blade reboot with Ali at San Diego Comic-Con in 2019, following Ali’s Oscar win for Green Book. What followed was years of turbulence. Director Bassam Tariq exited in September 2022 just weeks before filming was set to begin. At least five writers cycled through the project, with the script drifting in multiple directions. Yann Demange stepped in as director but also departed in June 2024. Marvel officially pulled Blade from its release calendar shortly after.
“We didn’t want to simply put a leather outfit on him and have him start killing vampires,” Feige explained. “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. We didn’t want to do that to Mahershala and didn’t want to do that to us.”
Ali, for his part, has never walked away from the role. As recently as last summer on the red carpet for Jurassic World Rebirth, he made his position clear. “I’m ready,” he said. “Let them know I’m ready.”
The character did briefly return to the MCU in 2024 when Wesley Snipes reprised his original portrayal of Blade in Deadpool & Wolverine, a moment Feige described as “very exciting.” But a standalone Ali-led Blade film appears to be indefinitely on hold. Notably, Tariq, the original director attached to the project, has since reunited with Ali on Your Mother Your Mother Your Mother, the action thriller premiering at TIFF this fall.
Marvel Studios will make its full presentation at San Diego Comic-Con on Saturday, July 25, where Feige is expected to be joined by special guests from across the MCU with a look at what comes next.