{"id":868397,"date":"2026-10-02T15:44:08","date_gmt":"2026-10-02T15:44:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/868397\/"},"modified":"2026-10-02T15:44:08","modified_gmt":"2026-10-02T15:44:08","slug":"how-bassam-tariq-pivoted-from-stalled-blade-reboot-to-new-mahershala-ali-thriller-im-happier-i-made-this-movie-thrillers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/868397\/","title":{"rendered":"How Bassam Tariq pivoted from stalled Blade reboot to new Mahershala Ali thriller: \u2018I\u2019m happier I made this movie\u2019 | Thrillers"},"content":{"rendered":"

Mahershala Ali<\/a> is swinging around a blade in Your Mother Your Mother Your Mother<\/a>. That\u2019s not a nod to Ali\u2019s previous attachment<\/a> to Marvel\u2019s Blade. It\u2019s of a piece with Ali\u2019s character, Latif, a devout Muslim who also happens to be a contract killer, though he fashions himself a righteous killer. Latif justifies his violence as divine retribution, dispensing victims he believes to have offended God. His sword, according to writer and director Bassam Tariq, is a part of Latif\u2019s code, a negotiation with his faith.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou are forced to strike with intention when you use a sword,\u201d Tariq says, speaking in a recent interview in Toronto.<\/p>\n

The film-maker seems equally purposeful in our conversation as we dive deep into his pulpy samurai-coded neo-western. In Your Mother Your Mother Your Mother, he grapples with grief, spirituality, violence and the culture in America writ large. The movie is a visceral and stylish genre thriller \u2013 think Steven Soderbergh\u2019s The Limey by way of Nicolas Winding Refn\u2019s Drive. It\u2019s also a textured portrait of Houston, navigating the city\u2019s cultural tapestry, but also the hostility and tension between its siloed faiths and ideologies. That\u2019s the conflict playing out between Ali\u2019s Latif, who\u2019s struggling to raise three kids on his own, and Jon Cho<\/a>\u2019s Pastor Hwan, a militant evangelical Christian posting fire-and-brimstone sermons online while waging a heavily armed and indiscriminately brutal religious crusade.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\u201cIt feels a little different in Texas right now,\u201d Tariq says. He describes a palpable contrast between what he refers to as the \u201cMamdani<\/a> era\u201d in New York, where he lives, and Houston, where he grew up. \u201cSomething that I found particularly in Texas, where I started writing [this] is, whether they\u2019re religious or not, people are connected to the third spaces that are religious. All the social services are cut. So, if you\u2019re going to go hang out or play basketball, it\u2019ll probably be at a mosque or a church. You end up being a part of those communities. At the same time, you can start building dogmatic ideas, [like,] \u2018We\u2019re better than other people\u2019. The nature of it has been really politicized. I think it\u2019s a dark moment right now.\u201d<\/p>\n

Your Mother Your Mother Your Mother fearlessly cuts through that tension while capturing what makes those communities so vibrant and inspiring, and searching for a sense of hope in its heartfelt and intimate interrogation of faith and fatherhood. Those themes were especially important to he and Ali, Tariq says.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe connected on these things while we were on this [other] movie together,\u201d says Tariq, referring to Marvel\u2019s Blade. \u201cYou might have heard of it.\u201d<\/p>\n

He\u2019s being cheeky. The fallout from the aborted Blade reboot, which Tariq was set to direct, has become an intricate part of Your Mother Your Mother Your Mother\u2019s lore. Ali was attached for several years to star as Marvel\u2019s vampire-slayer, once played by Wesley Snipes<\/a>. He only recently confirmed<\/a> that the long-delayed reboot is simply not happening.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe were very close to shooting when the pencils went down,\u201d says Tariq, describing the moment before he departed Blade in 2022. \u201cEven though we had no script, which is why it shut down.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mahershala Ali in Your Mother Your Mother Your Mother. Photograph: Amazon MGM Studios<\/p>\n

Tariq says they had their action sequences all planned out, following a year and a half of prep that included extensive fight training and choreography for Ali. That was Marvel\u2019s process at the time: the action comes first, allowing time for VFX and set design, and the rest comes after.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was like Bollywood, dude,\u201d he says today. \u201cYou have dance scenes. Figure out all the choreography. And then we\u2019ll figure out what the story is later \u2026 Now [Marvel\u2019s] not moving forward until they have a great script.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m not trying to throw any shade on the writers,\u201d Tariq adds, adding that they had big shoes to fill given that the earlier Blade<\/a> in his mind was a near-perfect movie. \u201cThey worked really hard on it. It\u2019s just a very tough thing to crack.\u201d<\/p>\n

Tariq says he\u2019s more than at peace with how everything turned out. He\u2019s actually a squirrelly mix of nerves and excitement when I speak to him, the evening before Your Mother Your Mother Your Mother premieres at the Toronto film festival, his whispery voice barely containing that mix of emotion. He\u2019s taking a moment for this interview before settling back in with his family, including two kids aged 12 and nine.<\/p>\n

They\u2019re in town for the occasion. They\u2019ve been along for the whole ride, from the writing process in Houston to production in Atlanta, observing onset, during ADR and the sound mix. \u201cI\u2019m trying to just keep everyone close,\u201d he says, before tying that ethos to the story of Your Mother Your Mother Your Mother, which is ultimately about a father\u2019s wayward journey back to his kids. \u201cYou live the movie that you make.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ali, Tariq and Jahleel Kamara on the set of Your Mother Your Mother Your Mother. Photograph: Jaclyn Martinez\/Amazon MGM Studios<\/p>\n

The seeds for the film were planted after Tariq\u2019s own harrowing experience following the birth of his first child in 2014, when his wife had an infection that sent her to the emergency room. \u201cMy son was only breastfed at the time,\u201d says Tariq. \u201cSo I had to go around New York City trying to find breast milk for my son. I couldn\u2019t find it anywhere.\u201d<\/p>\n

He poured that frantic search into the earliest iteration of Your Mother Your Mother Your Mother, which opens with Ali\u2019s Latif scouring for breast milk after his wife passes, while having the same crisis of faith that Tariq experienced.<\/p>\n

\u201cI remember that frustration,\u201d says Tariq. \u201cI felt like that anger towards divinity. And then, of course, my son was fine. I realized all he really needed at that moment was just for me be present as a father. To have that miraculous moment when you hear your kid wanting you, that\u2019s something that I think about. I\u2019ve been trying to contemplate: how do I put that in a story that\u2019s propulsive and exciting?\u201d<\/p>\n

Part of the solution came from working on Blade, where Tariq connected and collaborated with Ali, and mapped out those elaborate fight scenes, which would have been abandoned after Marvel pulled the plug. Instead, Tariq and Ali were able to salvage what they prepared for the superhero movie, and bring it all over to their more intimate film about a father discovering that his kids are his superpower.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m a lot happier that I made this movie,\u201d says Tariq, comparing working within the Marvel machine versus having the freedom to really explore and express himself on Your Mother Your Mother Your Mother.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs you know, with all these things, there are these massive systems, and they have so many stakeholders to please. It\u2019s just the nature of these things where they have to gross a certain [amount], and they have to look a certain way. There\u2019s a glossiness. And that\u2019s fine. I think some people have thrived in it and made some incredible films. For where I am right now, this feels like the right space. My mind and heart feel very much at ease.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Mahershala Ali is swinging around a blade in Your Mother Your Mother Your Mother. That\u2019s not a nod…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":868398,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[88],"class_list":["post-868397","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-entertainment"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/868397","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=868397"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/868397\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/868398"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=868397"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=868397"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=868397"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}