Blade has been off the big screen for nearly 15 years now, and at this point I find it difficult to get excited over the frequent "updates" about a revival of the Marvel vampire hero. With the rights to Blade now firmly back under the Marvel banner, and star Wesley Snipes active in Hollywood again, we've heard rumblings of a potential fourth movie or perhaps a dark and violent TV series, the latter it's worth reminding you having already been tried once. Hey, I dug the Blade TV show even if nobody else did. Anyway, all of this talk has gone nowhere, yet Snipes has continued to get fans' hopes up.
Well, he's at it again, and as usual he sounds deeply serious about returning to the Blade character in some fashion. Speaking with Vice to commemorate the 20th anniversary (!!!) of Blade's theatrical release, Snipes says he's in conversations with Marvel about a couple of projects, and since he was asked specifically about Blade 4 we can assume he's referring to a return of the Daywalker himself...
"There are a lot of conversations going around right now and we’re very blessed to have the enthusiasm and interest in something coming from that world again. We’ve created two projects that fit perfectly into this world and, when people see them, I think they’re only going to have a problem with deciding which one they love the most.
"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..."
Although he doesn't actually mention Blade in that response, he would go on to add "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."
My favorite part of the interview comes next, when he starts speculating on the idea of who could replace him if Marvel decided to reboot Blade with a new actor. Of course, Snipes can't think of anybody other than himself, because "not a lot of chocolate guys out there" who have the acting and martial arts skills that he does. He then considers if Marvel might "go vanilla" with some non-traditional casting, and he's down for that too if they can find the right guy.
How about a chocolate vanilla swirl, Wesley? Split the difference?
He also debunks some old rumors about his behavior on the Blade: Trinity set, and even disses co-star Patton Oswalt at one point. You should read that part for yourself because it's pure Wesley.
So we'll see if this leads to anything. Marvel post-Avengers 4 is going to be a very different place and there may be some room there for Blade to sink his teeth into.
