Marvel Universe stuff

Introducing Blade into the MCU is a lot harder than just having a movie of him hunting vampires. Midnight Sons makes it a lot easier to write him into it. He does a lot more than vampire hunting in the comics nowadays.

It bears repeating that Ali is over 50 now, and would have been nearly 50 even if the movie came out at the earliest possibility. It's hard to believe they ever intended Ali to be the lead long term.

Hell, if we want hard ages, if you go back to Blade 1, Whistler (Kristofferson) was around 61 when it was filmed; Snipes was around 35. Ali would have been closer to Whistler's age than Blade's age _even if the first MCU Blade came out on time_.

who's an athletic younger black actor they could get for the part hmmmmm

well, I hear this guy is available for the foreseeable future:

Ali could pull off the swagger the same as Snipes. Majors just doesn't have any Blade factor in him (Aware it was a joke)

Snipes was also a trained martial artist who already had several action roles under his belt, the closest Ali has ever come to an action role was voicing Miles uncle in the first Spiderverse movie.