SPOILER ALERT: This story contains spoilers for “Deadpool & Wolverine,” which is now playing in theaters
Wesley Snipes opened up to Entertainment Weekly about what it was like reprising Blade in “Deadpool & Wolverine.” He was one of the film’s big cameos and even attended San Diego Comic-Con last week to surprise fans after a screening of the Marvel blockbuster with the movie’s other cameo actors.
“Over the years, we’ve had very interesting conversations, some of them very substantive and some of them not,” Snipes told EW about bringing his iteration of Blade back for a fourth go-around. “So I kind of resided that I was moving on from them, which is okay. I did three of them, and I thought they turned out pretty good. Not so bad… So we move on to other things, and bigger and better things, as well.”
Snipes debuted as Blade in the 1998 movie of the same name and reprised the character in 2002’s “Blade II,” directed by Guillermo del Toro, and 2004’s “Blade: Trinity.” The latter film co-starred Ryan Reynolds, who just so happened to text Snipes during development on “Deadpool & Wolverine” to ask if he might be interested in reprising Blade. Reynolds sent a text that read: “I want to talk to you.”
“I did not think it was possible,” Snipes said of his return to Blade after 20 years. “I didn’t think we would be able to pull it off. I didn’t think that Marvel was into it, Disney was into it — also because they had Mahershala [Ali] cast for the next upcoming version of it…I thought it didn’t make sense to me, but [when] you get a call from Ryan Reynolds out of the blue after 20 years, you go, ‘Okay, I got to take this call. Let’s see what this is about.’ He told me the idea…They said ‘yes’ and ‘it’s a go.’ ‘If you’re in, we’re in.’ Here we are.”
Marvel has been developing its own “Blade” reboot with Ali for the past couple years, although it has faced numerous development issues. It was announced on June 12 that director Yann Demange was exiting the movie and that a new screenwriter, Eric Pearson (“The Fantastic Four,” “Black Widow”), was coming on board. Snipes took to X/Twitter at the time to post: “Blade, lordylordylordy. Folks still lookin for the secret sauce, ridin snowmobiles in traffic, kinda rough. Daywalkers make it look easy, don’t they?”
Marvel announced a “Blade” movie with Ali in July 2019. Bassam Tariq was the first director to join the project, although he exited in September 2022, roughly two months before the film was set to begin filming. Several screenwriters have also been announced through the years, from “Watchmen” scribe Stacy Osei-Kuffour to Michael Starrbury.
Variety reported last November that “Blade” had gone through at least five writers by that time. One person familiar with the script changes said the story at one point morphed into a narrative led by women and filled with life lessons. Speculation at the time said that Marvel was still looking to make the film but on a budget of less than $100 million.
Whether or not Ali’s Blade finally makes it to the screen remains to be seen, but at least that film’s development did not impact Snipes returning to the character in “Deadpool & Wolverine.”
“I wasn’t Blade ready, 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 shades and fangs in my mouth. We had to work out. We definitely had to get the body, and my biggest concern was being in condition enough to deal with whatever the action was. They didn’t really tell me what the action was going to be, so I prepared for whatever that was going to come. Thankfully, I didn’t have to do as much as I thought I would because the action movies are tough. They’re not easy at all by any means. About a month into it, I got the body right… and then, with the help of a little customized foam well placed in certain areas, it was all good to go, baby. Let’s ride!”
“Deadpool & Wolverine” is now playing in theaters nationwide.