Blade

[The NZA]

Blade turns 20 today : THR asks what happened to Blade

 

There’s no better place to begin than with a nightclub housed in, of all places, a meat-packing factory. Strobe lights, house music, bodies bumping and grinding against each other in the darkness. This is primal. Overhead sprinklers turn on, the liquid rains down, dark and heavy, onto expectant faces and open mouths lit up wildly by the dancing multitude of lights. It’s blood, and there’s a lot of it. Teeth extend, howls are emitted and the feeding begins as wet bodies push against each other. This is savage. A figure steps out, and from ground level the camera slowly moves up and then pulls back to reveal the figure. The lights go up, the DJ stops and eyes adjust to the clinical whiteness of the room. “It’s the Daywalker,” someone says in the background. Wesley Snipes is dressed all in black, a long leather coat and sunglasses, cutting a striking image. He steps forward and smiles slightly. There’s no one cooler in the room.

It’s 1998. Blade has yet to be released, and in fact few are expecting it, let alone aware of the comic book origins for the film that would hit on Aug. 21 of that year. Marvel is a struggling brand. Less than two years earlier, Marvel Entertainment Group filed for Chapter 11, facing bankruptcy in the aftermath of several failed publishing initiatives, the loss of a number of its top artists to Image and an overall decline in the interest of comic books. Iron Man, Thor, and Captain America are recovering from a convoluted and controversial yearlong storyline, Heroes Reborn, that failed to reignite interest and relevancy of characters once considered staples of the brand. Marvel’s film prospects are even more dire. The last theatrical movie based on the company’s characters was the critically panned Howard the Duck(1986). Straight-to-video releases The Punisher(1989) and Captain America(1990) didn’t fare any better. And then there was the matter of the unreleased The Fantastic Four (1994), later alleged by Stan Lee to be a scheme by Constantin Film Production to retain the rights. A muddled sense of continuity, unclear character direction saddled by endless events,and no movies was what Marvel fans could look forward to in the late '90s. That is, until Marvel got its blood flowing again.

Marvel Entertainment Group was reborn as Marvel Enterprises in 1997, under the direction of Toy Biz co-owner Ike Perlmutter and his partner Avi Arad. In the '90s, there was no better way to sell toys than to attach it to a movie. But before Marvel could take over the film world, it would first need to redefine the books they sold. Enter Marvel Knights, an imprint of mature comics starring Daredevil, Black Panther, Punisher and The Inhumans — characters whose own books had struggled or had been canceled years before. These were leftovers, characters few cared about, except for editors Joe Quesada and Jimmy Palmiotti, who saw the opportunity to reinvent these characters for the 21st century through their indie company Event Comics. The idea of Marvel Comics contracting an indie publisher and giving them license to pick the creative teams to take over these books seems like an improbable situation today, but in 1998 it was a necessity in order to breathe new life into its brand. Marvel’s new approach to these comics — take bottom-rung characters, give them a 21st century sense of cool and highlight the simplicity of their backstories — runs parallel to their first successful film release, Blade.

It’s too easy to remove Stephen Norrington’s Blade from the conversation of superhero movies, perhaps because it feels like it was originally intended to be that way, distinct from capes, cowls and tights. Blade had been in development at New Line since 1992, with LL Cool J, Laurence Fishburne and Denzel Washington all on the studio’s list before Snipes was cast as the human-vampire hybrid. David S. Goyer, who would later become Hollywood’s go-to guy for superhero scripts, took a relatively unknown Marvel character and imbued him with Snipes’ voice and a fashion sense.

Blade takes the Marvel Knights approach, though this is more likely a resulting awareness of the changing times than any planned coordination. Regardless, the same kind of streamlining and willingness to age-up the books to better appeal to their core audience, who had become adults that Marvel exhibited through Marvel Knights, is also what allowed Goyer and Norrington to deliver something that felt unique with Blade. Despite some MTV-style editing early in the film and nonplussed citizens who barely notice when action happens in the middle of the sidewalk, Blade is grounded in a way comic book movies hadn’t been before. Sure, the word "grounded" gets thrown around all the time now in a post-Christopher Nolan world, but in 1998, Tim Burton, Alex Proyas and Joel Schumacherdefined the aesthetics of comic book movies. The world of Blade feels realistically seedy, its streets grimy — lacking the Gothicism of the films that preceded it and the sheen superhero movies would later take on. In a number of ways, no doubt aided by its $45 million budget, Blade feels like an underground comic book movie, not only in terms of design but by the fact that few audience members were aware of Blade as a previously existing property.

[Da Cap'n 2099]

Still one of my favorite comic book movies ever. Saw it in the theater twice day one. One with Nick, Ariel, and dem and the second with my girl at the time. Can't remember who I lied to claiming I hadn't seen it yet. Could have been either. Haha!

[The NZA]

Wesley Snipes teases a return to Blade

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…

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.

[Jont]

Is there any reason they can't retcon the entire series into the MCU? I mean, rights, smights, they own everything now, or soon will. 

[Da Cap'n 2099]

I'm pretty sure that's the plan. Wesley Snipes being attached doesn't mean it can't be. Looking forward to it.

[Jont]

Yeah Snipes needs to back in blockbusters and they'd be hard pressed to replace him. Just take the whole continuity as is, merge it, just don't mention Blade:Trinity.