#Wesley Snipes Hypes Mahershala Ali’s Blade: He Will Do Great

Wesley Snipes has offered more praise for his successor. With a trilogy of his own Blade movies, Snipes has been credited by many for helping to usher in the superhero movie boom that’s taken Hollywood by storm over the past two decades. A new incarnation of the character will be played by Mahershala Ali when Blade is rebooted for the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

On Twitter, Wesley Snipes again endorsed Ali for the role. He retweeted a Blade fan’s post that read, “Best of luck to Mahershala Ali who’s gonna smash it I’m sure as blade but he’s gonna have a hard time outdoing Wesley Snipes.” For his part, Snipes showed that he’s fully confident that Ali will be just fine in the role, as he wrote, “He will do great.”

He will do great 🙏🏿 https://t.co/11PeFroKUY

— WS (@wesleysnipes) November 11, 2021

Wesley Snipes isn’t the only Blade actor to wish Mahershala Ali well with the role. Kirk “sticky Fingaz” Jones, who played the vampire hunter in Blade: The Series, recently told Comicbook.com, “Big up to the new Blade. I know he’s going to do an incredible job. He’s a great actor. It’s a lot of physical requirements and he’ll probably live up to the task. So blessings to him and pick up to him. And I give him the same respect that Wesley gave me.”

He added, “Man, just do your thing, man. Just, be honest. Hit the thing, just like they say with 2Pac. Say he got stuck in the road juice, he left in set, he was still Bishop. When I was doing Blade, I was transfixed. I was one of my favorite actors, Giovanni Ribisi. He’s a character actor, and he’s on set even at lunchtime, he’s still in character. I’m a ninja, so I’m still Blade in real life. So yeah, just engulf it and just go for it and make it come to life, man.”

Stephen Dorff, who played the villain Deacon Frost in the original Blade, also has high hopes for Mahershala Ali’s performance. While he was skeptical about the new writer and director properly handling Blade’s story creatively, Dorff knows that Ali will be “great in the role,” as he’s a “hell of an actor.” The praise was notable as Dorff had blasted Marvel movies soon before but still felt that Ali would be amazing nonetheless.

The new Blade movie will be directed by Bassam Tariq. The director previously told Indiewire that the new Blade team can’t deny what Wesley Snipes did, helping to create this superhero phenomenon, and that it’s very exciting to work on this new movie with Ali. Tariq said, “A Black man created the superhero world that we’re in, that’s just the truth. For me to now be working with somebody as talented and a juggernaut as Mahershala Ali, and the writer Stacy Osei-Kuffour, I’m just so – I’m so honored to be working with real Black juggernauts and Black talent. For me to just be with them in this room and listen and learn as I build this out, it’s really an honor.”

With Blade officially a part of the MCU, there’s a lot of anticipation for the character to get his own new movie with Mahershala Ali. Given the use of the multiverse in Marvel projects, the possibility is also there that we could still see the Wesley Snipes version someday again as well.

Topics: Blade