Bassam Tariq explains how stalled Blade collaboration led to new Mahershala Ali thriller

Bassam Tariq says work he and Mahershala Ali developed for Marvel’s stalled Blade reboot helped shape their separate film Your Mother Your Mother Your Mother, now out in the US. In an interview published on October 2, the writer and director described carrying action preparation into a Houston-set thriller about a widowed father searching for breast milk for his infant. The result gives the pair a completed collaboration after Tariq’s departure from Blade in 2022.

Ali plays Latif, a devout Muslim and contract killer whose wife has died, leaving him to care for three children. The immediate task of finding milk for his baby runs through a story of grief, religious conviction and escalating violence. It is an original film rather than a continuation of Marvel’s vampire story, even though the earlier project brought its director and star together.

How Blade preparation carried into the new film

Tariq told the Guardian that he and Ali were close to shooting Blade when work stopped. He said they had planned action sequences and spent about a year and a half preparing, including fight training and choreography for Ali. He also said there was no script at the point he left in 2022. That description of the production’s readiness is Tariq’s account; the interview does not independently establish the state of Marvel’s script then.

According to Tariq, he and Ali were able to use some of the action work they had prepared for Blade in their own film. The connection is practical and creative: the performers and filmmakers had developed a way of working together, while the new story offered a different setting and purpose for that preparation. Tariq said the themes of spirituality and fatherhood mattered to both of them during their earlier collaboration.

Tariq was careful about assigning blame for Blade’s problems. He told the Guardian he was not criticizing its writers, saying they had worked hard on a difficult project. He described his greater satisfaction with the film he ultimately made in terms of creative freedom and scale, calling the new project the right space for him now.

Why the story begins with a father searching for milk

The thriller’s unusual central search came from a frightening experience in Tariq’s own family, he told the Guardian. After the birth of his first child in 2014, his wife developed an infection and went to an emergency room. Their son was being breastfed, and Tariq said he searched New York for breast milk. He recalled the strain of that moment and the questions it raised for him about faith and his role as a father.

Tariq transformed that experience for fiction. In the film, Latif searches for milk after his wife dies, making an urgent need for his infant the engine of an action story. Tariq told In Review Online that the milk also represents Latif’s attempt to hold on to his wife. Those comments describe the filmmaker’s intention; the film’s bereavement is not a claim about Tariq’s own family.

The director cited Lone Wolf and Cub as an inspiration for the image of a warrior carrying a child through danger. In the In Review Online interview, he said he wanted to add his own version to that tradition. The combination lets the film place a parent’s immediate caregiving task alongside its fight scenes, rather than treating the child as a distant reason for the violence.

Faith and conflict in the Houston-set thriller

Latif sees himself as a righteous killer, although his work as a contract killer complicates that self-image. Tariq told the Guardian that the character’s sword reflects a personal code and forces deliberate action. The director’s explanation places the weapon within Latif’s struggle over faith, rather than presenting it simply as a reminder of Ali’s unrealized Blade role.

John Cho plays Pastor Hwan, a militant Christian preacher whose path crosses Latif’s. Both the Guardian and In Review Online describe religious conflict as central to the film. In Review Online’s interview also has Tariq resisting a simple Muslim-against-Christian reading: he said he wanted characters whose convictions and contradictions would make audiences pause over easy judgments.

Houston matters to that approach. Tariq, who grew up there, told the Guardian that religious spaces can serve as places for community activity and support while also allowing rigid ideas about outsiders to grow. His comments explain why the film sets its confrontation among faith communities rather than using religion only as a label for its opponents.

Where the film can be seen

The Guardian reports that Your Mother Your Mother Your Mother is out in the US, with releases scheduled for October 9 in Australia and November 20 in the UK. Those dates are reported release plans, and the interviews provide no basis for claims about ticket sales or audience response. For now, Tariq’s account establishes how an unfinished collaboration supplied preparation for a distinct story built around a father’s responsibilities.