As a public domain property, people are free to do whatever they want with the title character of Bram Stoker’s Dracula, so if somebody wants to write a script where he’s the sassy best friend in a teen comedy or a trapeze artist with fourteen arms, then there’s absolutely nothing stopping them.
It isn’t surprising that Dracula and Sherlock Holmes are the two most adapted fictional characters in history when both literary icons have been free from any sort of copyright restrictions for a long time now. In fact, it feels as though we get a new version of the legendary vampire and the famous sleuth every few years, and the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s Blade reboot could be Vlad the Impaler’s next destination.
Of course, Dracula and Blade have a long and intertwined history in the pages of Marvel Comics dating right back to the latter’s very first appearance in 1973, and the Wesley Snipes trilogy even brought him in for the last installment, although Dominic Purcell’s terrible villain Drake is probably best left forgotten.
In any case, we’ve heard rumblings on a few occasions now that Dracula might feature in the reboot and sources close to WGTC – the same ones who told us War Machine was getting his own Disney Plus series and Luke Skywalker would be in The Mandalorian – say that the plan is still for Mahershala Ali’s Daywalker to face off with the most famous vampire in history. Of course, Blade doesn’t exactly have the sort of extensive rogues’ gallery that throws up plenty of potential antagonists like the majority of the MCU’s major heroes, but including Dracula certainly feels like a natural choice given their aforementioned comic book history.
Apparently, though, that won’t be his only appearance, as Marvel also want the character turn up in the upcoming Ghost Rider project. We can’t confirm 100% yet whether it’ll be in the planned TV show or feature film, as we’re told that both are in the works, but it seems that Johnny Blaze and the Count will indeed be crossing paths at some point in the future of the MCU.
