Spoiler alert: This story contains spoilers for “Deadpool & Wolverine,” now in theaters.
Actor Wesley Snipes spoke to Entertainment Weekly about his experience reprising his role as Blade in “Deadpool & Wolverine.” Snipes was part of the cast of the film and even attended San Diego Comic-Con last week to surprise fans after the screening of the Marvel blockbuster with the other actors involved in the film.
“Over the years, we’ve had some really interesting conversations, some of which were substantive and some of which weren’t,” Snipes tells EW of remaking Blade for a fourth time. “So I realize I’m moving away from it, which is good. I did three of them, and I thought they were pretty good. Not too bad… So we move on to other things, bigger and better things.”
Snipes first appeared as Blade in the 1998 film of the same name and reprised the character in 2002's Blade 2, directed by Guillermo del Toro, and 2004's Blade: Trinity. The latter film starred Ryan Reynolds, who happened to text Snipes during the development of Deadpool & Wolverine to ask if he'd be interested in reprising Blade. Reynolds texted back, “I need to talk to you.”
“I didn’t think it was possible,” Snipes said of returning to Blade after 20 years. “I didn’t think we could do it. I didn’t think Marvel was interested in it, but Disney was interested in it too — because they had Mahershala.” [Ali] The cast for the next version of it has been cast… I thought it didn't make sense to me, but… [when] “I got a call from Ryan Reynolds out of the blue after 20 years, and I said, ‘Well, I have to take this call. Let’s see what this is about.’ He told me the idea… They said, ‘Yes,’ and, ‘We can do it.’ ‘If you’re okay, we’re okay.’ Here we are.”
Marvel has been developing a new version of “Blade” with Ali for the past two years, despite facing a number of development issues. On June 12, it was announced that director Yann Demange would be leaving the film and that new screenwriter Eric Pearson (“The Fantastic Four,” “Black Widow”) would be joining the cast. “Blade, oh my god,” Snipes tweeted at the time. “People are still looking for the secret sauce, and snowmobiling in traffic is kind of hard. Day walkers make it look easy, don’t they?”
Marvel announced “Blade” with Ali in July 2019. Bassam Tariq was the first director to join the project, though he exited in September 2022, nearly two months before the film was set to begin filming. Several screenwriters have also been announced over the years, from “Watchmen” scribe Stacey Osei-Kuffour to Michael Starberry.
diverse Last November, it was reported that “Blade” had gone through at least five writers by then. At one point, the story shifted to a female-led story filled with life lessons, said one person familiar with the script changes. Speculation at the time was that Marvel was still looking to make the film, but with a budget of less than $100 million.
It remains to be seen whether or not Ali's Blade will finally make it to the screen, but at least the film's development didn't affect Snipes' return to the character in “Deadpool & Wolverine.”
“I wasn’t prepared for Blade, man. I don’t walk around as Blade every day, you know what I mean?” Snipes told EW about playing Blade again. “With a trench coat and sunglasses and fangs in my mouth. We had to train. We definitely had to get the body, and my biggest fear was getting in shape to handle whatever it was. They didn’t really tell me what the work was going to be like, so I prepared for whatever was coming. Luckily, I didn’t have to do as much as I thought because action movies are hard. They’re not easy by any means. After about a month, I got the body right… and then with the help of a little bit of custom foam placed well in certain areas, it was like, ‘Oh, baby. Let’s ride!’”
“Deadpool & Wolverine” is now showing in theaters nationwide.
