Blade Director Bassam Tariq Defends Kevin Feige After Marvel Cancels 1920s Vampire Film

Blade director Bassam Tariq has broken his silence on the collapse of Marvel's 1920s vampire movie, offering a surprisingly measured defense of studio chief Kevin Feige while revealing tantalizing details about the abandoned project. The filmmaker, who was the first director officially attached to the Mahershala Ali-led reboot before Marvel officially canceled it in July of this year, spoke candidly to Vulture about an experience that left him feeling like a "failure" and forced him to disconnect from the industry entirely.

The weight of Tariq’s views goes far beyond a standard exit interview. Instead of framing the Blade fiasco as a studio villain, he sees it as a structural collapse caused by an impossible goal: to rival Wesley Snipes’ Blade while having no finalized script. He also humanizes Feige, who once branded himself a “gigantic loser and failure” after the project fell apart—a sentiment echoed by Ali. This nuance tempers the narrative that has mostly blamed Marvel’s leadership. The full interview drops as Tariq’s latest film, Your Mother Your Mother Your Mother, premieres with Ali headlining, offering an oddly fitting bookend to the Blade saga.

Here's a thinking process:

Back in 2019, Marvel unveiled the reboot of its Cinematic Universe featuring Mahershala Ali as the Daywalker at San Diego Comic-Con, sparking instant buzz around a hero who helped spark the modern superhero wave. The studio chose Bassam Tariq—renowned for directing the documentary These Birds Walk and the celebrated film Mogul Mowgli—to helm a historical thriller anchored in the 1920s, a striking shift from the bleak, industrial vibe of the Snipes trilogy. Tariq later left the project, and Yann Demange stepped in for a

Ali stayed on the project for the whole stretch. When Marvel chose to pull the plug, it turned out to be one of the studio’s only public blunders since the MCU’s launch.

Here's a thinking process:

Tariq describes his time on Blade as disorienting and ultimately damaging to his sense of self.

"I didn't know which way north was,"

Bassam Tariq, Director

"Afterward, I had to kind of disconnect from everybody. I don't know if that was the right thing to do, but it was one of those things where I had to find myself again."

Bassam Tariq, Director

His wife, his children, and the Atlanta Muslim community were the lifelines that steadied him, letting him breathe outside the film’s shadow.

The breaking point came down to creative control. Tariq states plainly:

"They wouldn't let me write the script, and life's too short to make really disastrous things."

Bassam Tariq, Director

The gap between what Marvel expected a director‑for‑hire to deliver and what Tariq saw he could do is clear. He points out the huge difference in scale: his earlier project, Mogul Mowgli, ran on a $1.2 million budget. By contrast, Blade’s sets cost the same money as ten copies of that film. From Marvel’s point of view, that explains why Tariq didn’t have the final say, even if the partnership ultimately fell apart.

What the 1920s Vampire Movie Would Have Been

Despite the project's death, Tariq shared vivid details about the film that never was. The production had constructed "incredibly designed" and "beautiful" sets in New Orleans, overseen by production designer Stefania Cella, whose work Tariq calls the most heartbreaking loss of the cancellation. The centerpiece action sequence would have been "an incredible horse chase through these sets that started in a speakeasy where Blade would act drunk." That single image — a period-appropriate Blade navigating a Prohibition-era vampire underworld on horseback — suggests a film with genuine visual ambition and a distinct identity separate from its predecessors.

Tariq emphasizes that the craftspeople building these worlds were not the problem.

"That's the part that breaks my heart the most, all of the craftsmen and craftswomen that were working on the thing,"

Bassam Tariq, Director

In his opinion, the flaw was that all the enthusiasm had to spill onto the script, yet it didn’t. He makes a point of not faulting the writers, acknowledging their hard work, but he pinpoints a larger problem: the initiative lacked essential components to come together as intended. He keeps saying the missing link was a solid, complete script that could steer the huge Marvel machine they had built. Without that narrative backbone, the entire effort fell short, and the film never reached its full potential.

Here's a thinking process:

Perhaps the most striking element of Tariq's interview is his refusal to join the chorus criticizing Kevin Feige.

"He's a good dude. I really dislike all this st about like, 'Marvel fumbled this. Fk Kevin Feige.' No, man. He's got a lot on his plate, too much."

Bassam Tariq, Director

Tariq calls Feige "adaptable," noting that he "listens and f**king changes," citing Spider-Man: Brand New Day as evidence that Marvel Studios pivots to preserve spectacle while building story. He frames the MCU as Feige's world "rightfully so," given the unprecedented commercial and critical success Feige has delivered for Disney.

Tariq's defense rests on pragmatism and perspective.

"Of course they're going to trust him over me, who had made just one film,"

Bassam Tariq, Director

he says, referencing his single narrative feature before Blade. He acknowledges the impossible task: competing with Wesley Snipes' Blade while managing a sprawling cinematic universe.

"I want to be clear: I like Kevin. I'd love to talk to him if he sees it."

Bassam Tariq, Director

This isn't the language of a burned bridge — it's a filmmaker who understands the machinery he entered and holds no illusion that his voice should have outweighed the architect of the MCU. Whether that generosity reflects genuine sentiment or professional diplomacy, it complicates the simple narrative of Marvel as a director-eating machine.

Here's a thinking process:

For the audience, Tariq's account confirms the worst fears about the Blade reboot: a spectacular production design wasted on a script that never gelled, a director hamstrung by studio hierarchy, and a project that likely should have been paused until the creative foundation was solid. The horse chase through a 1920s speakeasy sounds like the kind of set piece that justifies a theatrical experience — practical stunts, period texture, a vampire hunter in a flapper-era underworld. Losing that to development dysfunction is a genuine loss for blockbuster cinema.

At the same time, Tariq's refusal to demonize Feige offers a healthier framework for understanding how massive franchises operate. The MCU is not an auteur-driven endeavor; it is an industrial complex where individual vision is necessarily subordinated to brand continuity. Tariq knew this going in — or learned it fast — and his exit interview reads like someone who made peace with that reality. The tragedy isn't that Marvel "fumbled" in a malicious sense; it's that the system incentivizes announcing dates before scripts exist, locking in talent and resources for movies that aren't ready to be made. Until that changes, more Blades will happen.

Tariq's final hope — that Feige might someday watch Your Mother Your Mother Your Mother and see what he can do — carries more weight than any angry tell-all could. It's the statement of a filmmaker who still believes in his craft, who took a swing at the biggest plate in the industry, missed, and walked away with his dignity intact. The Blade that lives in our heads — the speakeasy, the horse chase, Ali in a period trench coat — will almost certainly remain better than any version that could have survived that production. But the fact that Tariq can articulate that loss without bitterness suggests he's already moved past it. The rest of us are still waiting for the Daywalker to step out of the shadows.