Reading THIS report on The Hollywood Reporter’s website titled Marvel Cliffhanger: Robert Downey Jr.’s $50 Million Sequel Showdown, I came across this in the penultimate paragraph:
Even as Phase 2 gets under way with Iron Man 3 and sequels to Thor and Captain America, Marvel is working on Phase 3. Ant-Man, a project to be directed by Edgar Wright, has a release date of Nov. 6, 2015. Beyond that, the company is tight-lipped about its plans. Marvel has a writing program it uses as a concept generator and has scripts for Blade and Ms. Marvel features, for example. Doctor Strange, Iron Fist, Black Panther and The Runaways are other projects on the horizon. The company slowly has been reacquiring licenses to characters it lost during the 1990s, snapping up Blade, Ghost Rider, Power Man and Daredevil in the past year alone.
Discussions on the potential for a Black Panther movie certainly aren’t new (the latest rumor is that Chadwick Boseman is Marvel’s top pick for the role); the same goes for Luke Cage/Power Man (lots of names have been tossed around for the part); but we haven’t talked about the potential for a Blade franchise reboot very much – definitely not as much of the first 2.
There was the Blade anime series which aired on the G4 channel last year, in 11 successive half-hour episodes every week after its debut.
Harold Perrineau provided the voice for the titular character which saw Blade on the hunt to avenge the death of his mother, taking him to Japan, the Philippines, Indonesia, Vietnam, and Cambodia in an effort to take down the evil villain, Deacon Frost, with vampire hunter Makoto at his side.
It actually was a good series. I enjoyed it.
You should know that the entire 12-episode season is available right now, on iTunes and Amazon VOD, if you haven’t seen it. It’s also on DVD.
And, as I recall, while he was still in prison, last year, Wesley Snipes, the star of the first trilogy of Blade films, said that he’d like to return to the franchise when he got out of prison:
Some people forget or overlook my/our contribution to this current trend. The ‘Gaming’ community knows and the streets give us credit, but the movie world frequently plays us like the ‘ugly step child’ or the ‘kitchen help’, especially when the conversation revolves around the ‘boys in tights’ or ‘the bat’. Getting asked this question all the time, my response is: “Under the right circumstances, with the right team, yes, I’d do another one.” But don’t get me wrong, I’m not waiting around for the opportunity. I’ve got plenty to do, plus an unravelled character in the works who I think will give Blade a helluva run for his money. It would be nice to fulfill some of the really cool plans we had for Blade, but didn’t get the chance to go live with.
The franchise didn’t end well, with Blade: Trinity being the worst of the 3. But details on the chaos that was the set of that final film, during which Wesley said he felt disrespected and railroaded, and that the movie sucked as a result, were shared in a post that you can read HERE.
I doubt that Marvel would reboot the franchise with Wesley starring. They’d more than likely go after a younger actor to fill the role, in a redo.
But based on the above THR report, it looks like movies based on Black Panther, Luke Cage and Blade are somewhere in Marvel’s development pipeline, and it’s more of a matter of when than if.
Although of the 3, I won’t be surprised if we see a Blade reboot first, given that it’s already been *tested* and was successful overall. We know how risk-averse studios are; they’d rather go with something that’s worked before.
Stay tuned.
