1998’s Blade kicks an enormous amount of ass and is arguably the first modern superhero movie, feeling like the prototype for what would become the MCU style of comic book adaptation. Two sequels followed, with Guillermo Del Toro’s Blade II a worthy successor and David Goyer’s Blade: Trinity being…well…let’s just say there’s a reason we don’t talk about Blade Trinity.
Anyways, other than a quickly cancelled TV show in 2006, the property has in been stasis ever since. But lately, we’ve been hearing rumblings that the character might be making a return, possibly in the MCU. In fact, said rumors were stoked today by Wesley Snipes posting the following tweet:
Caption this… #BLADE pic.twitter.com/9s23ZGmhtX
— Wesley Snipes (@wesleysnipes) May 8, 2019
Now, Wesley Snipes is no stranger to tweeting, talking and generally promoting Blade. He’s even teased a fully fledged return to the role, saying that the decision is now “up to Marvel… my teeth still sharp.” He expanded on this in an interview with Vice as well, confirming that he has indeed had talks with Marvel Studios about a return to the role.
“All the main execs [at Marvel] and my team, we’ve been discussing for the past two years. Everyone’s enthusiastic about it, everybody gets it. But they got a business to run and they gotta square the things that they gotta figure out before they can get to it, I guess. In the meantime, we got a business to run and our own slate of things to do so…
But the next time you see something in [the Blade universe], mark my words: what we did before is child’s play compared to what we can do now.”
So, is it really feasible that Wesley Snipes could play Blade in the MCU? Well, there’s a couple of roadblocks in the way. First and foremost is the simple fact that Blade: Trinity came out 14 years ago and Snipes is now 56. Sure, the hero does age very slowly in the comics, but it might be a stretch for the actor to play the same version of the character we last saw in the original trilogy. However, it’s possible that we could see an MCU iteration of Blade who’s aged over the course of his vampire-fighting career instead.
Anyways, one factor that might hint that it’s not beyond the realms of possibility is that it seems that Ryan Reynolds’ Deadpool will make his way to the MCU in the wake of the Disney/Fox deal. This would mark the first time an established superhero from a separate cinematic universe entered the MCU, and if audiences accept him, then why not Snipes’ Blade, too?
