Blade
It’s weird how the Blade movie has kind of been removed from Marvel cinema history.
Maybe I’m mistaken here, but Marvel’s recent, and well-deserved success is no secret. But whenever people talk about what a juggernaut Marvel movies have become, we keep hearing that it was Iron Man that ‘started it all.’ I must have read that twenty times in mainstream and fan stories about the mega-hit, the Avengers, and Marvel’s recent successes.
Which seems only partially true. Iron Man was a big hit, and definitely the first of the Avengers predecessor franchises, absolutely.
But that ignores the hugely successful Spider-man trilogy, which came first.
And the extremely successful X-men films that came before, as well.
Now, my understanding is that neither of those franchises are owned by Marvel itself, but by other studios. IF the pr for Marvel studios puts more emphasis on their own films, I can understand that.
But I don’t get why BLADE has been forgotten.
Doing the math, the three BLADE movies brought in over half a billion dollars in worldwide box office, NOT INCLUDING dvd, pay per view, and licensing.
It had a tremendously charismatic lead, portrayed to perfection by the screen-owning Wesley Snipes, arguably his signature character on film. It helped reinvent the way vampire movies would appear (until Twilight ruined them again), and at least a couple very successful film franchises seem to be entirely ripped off from the style of those films. It was, in short (correct me if I am wrong), the first hugely successful Marvel movie, the first genuinely kickass comic book action film from Marvel, it established Marvel as a licensing gold mine during a time when the company itself was doing very poorly, AND it featured an African American lead in an action movie, still a relative rarity to this day.
I don’t quite get why when people talk Marvel films, Blade is always left out. If you watch the first X-men film, the Blade influence is HUGE. The X-men wear Blade-like costumes, the action attempts to match Blade’s frenetic style. Would X-men have even been made without it?
It makes me curious…why is this successful series of films, that probably ACTUALLY ‘started it all’ seemingly deliberately left out of Marvel film history?
Is it because of contentious animosity with the characters’ creator? Is it because of star Wesley Snipes’ later legal trouble? Is race a factor? I don’t quite get it.
I personally really enjoyed the Blade films, and I love the character. I wanted to use him in Agent X, I think he is one of the premier badasses in comics, created when that much cool almost wasn’t even ALLOWED in one character.
My understanding is that the rights to Blade have reverted back to Marvel for films…it would make me VERY happy to see the character return to the screen, and to see the surviving creator, Marv Wolfman, receive proper credit and compensation. Badass vampire killer, still a great idea, even if a dozen movies since have tried to steal some of its thunder.
Anyway, it seems odd that Blade never comes up in the list of Marvel cinema franchises.
