Blade’s Bassam Tariq and Mahershala Ali team up for action flick Your Mother Your Mother Your Mother

The MCU’s unreleased Blade film may be stuck in development hell, but thankfully that movie’s star, Mahershala Ali, and former director Bassam Tariq (Mogul Mowgli, These Birds Walk) have teamed up for an action flick that will actually come out.

On Friday, MGM dropped a trailer for writer-director Tariq’s Your Mother Your Mother Your Mother, starring Ali as a devout hitman who fights his way across Houston to protect his children following the death of his wife.

The film will also star John Cho, Giancarlo Esposito, Severance’s Tramell Tillman, Abubakr Ali (A House of Dynamite), Tiffany Boone (Mufasa: The Lion King), and Laith Nakli (The Wall). Katelin Arizmendi (Succession, Dune) is the cinematographer and Son Lux (Everything Everywhere All At Once) is handling the music. The movie was announced in February 2025, and filming finished on May 29, 2025; a normal timeline, unlike a certain Marvel project that’s been stuck in limbo for over half a decade and counting.

Blade was initially announced in July 2019 after Mahershala Ali personally pushed for the project, and Bassam Tariq was hired to direct in 2021. Delroy Lindo and Aaron Pierce (Rebel Ridge) later joined the cast. The film was initially set for a Nov. 3, 2023 release date. However, the project ran into problems when writer Beau DeMayo (Moon Knight, X-Men ’97) was removed from the film (he alleges this occurred after he raised concerns over Marvel execs making racially motivated comments). That same month, Tariq left the project after additional delays.

After pausing production to find a new director and a screenwriter to rework the script, Yann Demange (’71, Lovecraft Country, Top Boy) was brought on for the former, and Michael Starrbury for the latter. Later, Nic Pizzolatto of True Detective fame was brought on for yet another rewrite, as the film became a prohibition-era period piece. Then the project went on hold during the 2023 Writers Guild of America strike. Afterward, the film’s premise changed yet again, shifting away from its 1920s setting. Costume designer Ruth E. Carter left the project to work on Sinners, taking the prohibition-era outfits she designed with her.

After even more script changes and delays, Demange left the movie in March 2024. Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige has said the project is still looking for a director, but industry insider Jeff Sneider reported that as of early this year, a solo Blade movie was dead and that Marvel was instead pursuing a Midnight Sons film (for context, this is a team of supernatural heroes that includes Blade, Ghost Rider, Morbius, and others). Elsewhere, Arkane Studios has been working on a Blade game that apparently isn’t canceled, but isn’t looking so hot either, considering the ongoing mass layoffs at Microsoft. Until either project comes to fruition, Blade will have to settle for cameos in What If…? and being a not-so-strong DPS character in Marvel Rivals. It’s a bummer.

Your Mother Your Mother Your Mother comes to select movie theaters on Sept. 25 and releases widely in October.