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Blade
Blade
	The Blade Trilogy DVD box set
Directed by	Stephen Norrington (Blade); Guillermo del Toro (II); David S. Goyer (Trinity);
Written by	David S. Goyer; Michael Starrbury;
Based on	Blade; by Marv Wolfman; Gene Colan;
Starring	Wesley Snipes;
Music by	Mark Isham (Blade); Marco Beltrami (II); Ramin Djawadi; The RZA (Trinity);
Distributed by	New Line Cinema
Release date	1998–2006
Country	United States
Language	English
Budget	$164 million
Box office	$417 million

Blade is a superhero film and television franchise based on the Marvel Comics character of the same name, starring Wesley Snipes as Blade in the film trilogy, and Sticky Fingaz in the television series. The trilogy was directed by Stephen Norrington, Guillermo del Toro and David S. Goyer, the latter of whom also wrote the films and created the television series. The original films and television series were distributed by New Line Cinema from 1998 to 2006.

The character was created in 1973 for Marvel Comics by writer Marv Wolfman and artist Gene Colan as a supporting character in the 1970s comic The Tomb of Dracula. In the comic, Blade's mother was bitten by a vampire while she was in labor with Blade, rendering him immune to being turned into a vampire; following the release of the 1998 film Blade, the character was retroactively made into a dhampir and redesigned to match his movie counterpart. In 2024, Snipes reprised his role as the character in the film Deadpool & Wolverine.

Films

Film	U.S. release date	Director	Screenwriter	Producers
Blade	August 21, 1998	Stephen Norrington	David S. Goyer	Peter Frankfurt, Wesley Snipes, and Robert Engelman
Blade II	March 22, 2002	Guillermo del Toro	David S. Goyer	Peter Frankfurt, Wesley Snipes, and Patrick Palmer
Blade: Trinity	December 8, 2004	David S. Goyer		Peter Frankfurt, Wesley Snipes, David S. Goyer, and Lynn Harris

Blade (1998)

Blade grows up to become a vampire hunter, swearing vengeance on the creatures that killed his mother. He teams up with a man called Whistler, a retired vampire hunter and weapons expert.

Meanwhile, in the urban underworld, a feud is started between "pure-blood" vampires and those who had been human, but were "turned". Blade becomes aware of this and investigates further, uncovering a plot to raise the blood god La Magra, something he must stop at all costs.

Blade II (2002)

A rare mutation has occurred within the vampire community. "Reapers" are vampires so consumed with an insatiable bloodlust that they prey on vampires as well as humans, transforming victims who are unlucky enough to survive into Reapers themselves. Now their quickly expanding population threatens the existence of vampires, and soon there won't be enough humans in the world to satisfy their bloodlust. Blade, Whistler and an armory expert named Scud are curiously summoned by the Shadow Council. The council reluctantly admits that they are in a dire situation and they require Blade's assistance. Blade then tenuously enters into an alliance with The Bloodpack, an elite team of vampires who were trained in all modes of combat to defeat Blade. They'll use their skills instead to help wipe out the Reaper threat. Blade's team and the Bloodpack are the only line of defense which can prevent the Reaper population from wiping out the vampire and human populations.

Blade: Trinity (2004)

In the final installment of the series, the vampires succeed in framing Blade for the killing of a human (who was in fact a familiar being used as bait). Blade, now in the public's eye and wanted by the FBI, is forced to join forces with the Nightstalkers, a human clan of vampire hunters. Blade, Hannibal King, and Abigail Whistler go after Danica Talos, who has succeeded in locating and resurrecting Drake, also known as Dracula, the first vampire and by far the most powerful. In order to stop him, Blade has to release a virus that will wipe out all vampires, but being a dhampir, he must face the possibility of also dying as a result.

Cancelled projects

In October 2008, Blade director Stephen Norrington was confirmed to be developing a prequel trilogy to Blade, featuring Stephen Dorff reprising his role as Deacon Frost.^[2]^[3] However, by August 2012, the film rights to Blade had reverted to Marvel Studios.^[4]

In October 2016, star of the Underworld film series Kate Beckinsale stated that a crossover film between the franchises had been discussed as a sequel to Blade: Trinity with Snipes returning, but was declined because Marvel Studios had plans to introduce the character into the Marvel Cinematic Universe.^[5]

Television

Series	Season	Episodes		Originally released		Creator	Network
Series	Season	Episodes		First released	Last released	Creator	Network
Blade: The Series	1	13		June 28, 2006	September 13, 2006	David S. Goyer	Spike

Blade: The Series (2006)

In 2006, Spike TV aired a thirteen-episode series set after the events of Blade: Trinity, with Sticky Fingaz portraying Blade, replacing Snipes. Goyer (who wrote the scripts for all three of the films and directed the third film) also created the series.

Cast and crew

Cast

Character	Films			Television series
	Blade	Blade II	Blade: Trinity	Blade: The Series
	1998	2002	2004	2006
Blade Eric Brooks / The Daywalker	Wesley Snipes	Wesley Snipes André Hyde-Braithwaite^Y	Wesley Snipes	Sticky Fingaz Jon Kent Ethridge^Y
Abraham Whistler	Kris Kristofferson			Adrian Glynn McMorran
Deacon Frost La Magra	Stephen Dorff	Mentioned
Dr. Karen Jenson	N'Bushe Wright
Quinn	Donal Logue
'Mercury'	Arly Jover
Vanessa Brooks	Sanaa Lathan
Racquel	Traci Lords
Gitano Dragonetti	Udo Kier
Eli Damaskinos		Thomas Kretschmann
Jared Nomak		Luke Goss
'Priest'		Tony Curran
Nyssa Damaskinos		Leonor Varela
Dieter Reinhardt		Ron Perlman
Asad		Danny John-Jules
'Snowman'		Donnie Yen
'Chupa'		Matt Schulze
'Scud'		Norman Reedus
Dracula / Drake	Mentioned		Dominic Purcell
Abigail Whistler	Mentioned		Jessica Biel
Hannibal King			Ryan Reynolds
Danica Talos			Parker Posey
Dr. Edgar Vance			John Michael Higgins
Jarko Grimwood			Triple H
Asher Talos			Callum Keith Rennie
FBI Agent Ray Cumberland			James Remar
Hedges			Patton Oswalt
Krista Starr				Jill Wagner
Shen				Nelson Lee
Marcus Van Sciver				Neil Jackson
'Chase'				Jessica Gower
FBI Agent Ray Collins				Larry Poindexter

Crew

Film	Director	Producer	Writer	Composer	Cinematographer	Editor
Blade	Stephen Norrington	Peter Frankfurt Wesley Snipes Robert Engelman Andrew J. Horne	David S. Goyer	Mark Isham	Theo van de Sande	Paul Rubell
Blade II	Guillermo del Toro	Peter Frankfurt Wesley Snipes Patrick Palmer		Marco Beltrami	Gabriel Beristain	Peter Amundson
Blade: Trinity	David S. Goyer	Peter Frankfurt Wesley Snipes David S. Goyer Lynn Harris		Ramin Djawadi The RZA	Gabriel Beristain	Conrad Smart Howard E. Smith

Reception

Box office performance

Film	Release date	Box office gross			All time ranking	Budget	Reference
Film	Release date	North America	Other territories	Worldwide	North America	Budget	Reference
Blade	August 21, 1998	$70,087,718	$61,095,812	$131,211,411	#724	$45 million	^[6]^[7]
Blade II	March 22, 2002	$82,348,319	$72,661,713	$155,010,032	#558	$54 million	^[8]
Blade: Trinity	December 8, 2004	$52,411,906	$76,493,460	$131,977,904	#1,036	$65 million	^[9]
Total		$204,847,943	$210,250,985	$418,199,347		$164 million

Critical and public response

Critical and public response of Blade
Film	Critical		Public
Film	Rotten Tomatoes	Metacritic	CinemaScore
Blade	58% (109 reviews)^[10]	47 (25 reviews)^[11]	A−^[12]
Blade II	57% (150 reviews)^[13]	52 (28 reviews)^[14]	B+^[12]
Blade: Trinity	24% (167 reviews)^[15]	38 (30 reviews)^[16]	B+^[12]
Blade: The Series	50% (18 reviews)^[17]	49 (15 reviews)^[18]	—

Music

Year	Title	Chart positions		Certifications (sales thresholds)
Year	Title	U.S.	U.S. R&B	Certifications (sales thresholds)
1998	Blade: Music from and Inspired by the Motion Picture Released: August 25, 1998 Label: TVT	36	28	US: Gold
2002	Blade II: The Soundtrack Released: March 19, 2002 Label: Virgin	26	23
2004	Blade: Trinity (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack) Released: November 23, 2004 Label: New Line	–	68

Video games

Blade – based on Blade, released in 2000.^[19]
Blade II – based on Blade II, released in 2002.^[20]
Blade Trinity - based on Blade III, released in 2004 exclusively for mobile phones.^[21]

Marvel Cinematic Universe

In May 2013, Marvel had a working script for a new Blade film.^[22] Snipes said in July 2015 that he hoped to reprise the role in any future film and had discussed this with Marvel.^[23]^[24]^[25] In 2019, Marvel Studios announced a Blade reboot set in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU), with Mahershala Ali being cast as the title character.^[26] It was scheduled to be released on November 7, 2025.^[27] In October 2024, Disney removed the film from its release schedule.^[28]

Snipes reprised his role as the character in the 2024 film Deadpool & Wolverine.^[29]

References

^ ^a ^b "Blade Franchise Box Office History - The Numbers". The Numbers. Archived from the original on November 18, 2018. Retrieved November 18, 2018.
^ "Norrington, Dorff Teaming on Blade Spin-Off". ComingSoon.net. July 7, 2009. Archived from the original on January 26, 2022. Retrieved September 28, 2019.
^ "'BLADE' Spinoff In Development: Will Feature STEPHEN DORFF Reprising DEACON FROST Role". Dietrichthrall.wordpress.com. July 8, 2009. Archived from the original on February 3, 2011. Retrieved January 8, 2011.
^ Kit, Borys (August 14, 2012). "Fox's Daredevil Rights on Verge of Reverting to Marvel as Ticking Clock Looms (Video)". The Hollywood Reporter. Archived from the original on August 15, 2012. Retrieved August 10, 2016.
^ Jayson, Jay (October 7, 2016). "Marvel Is Doing Something With Blade According To Kate Beckinsale". ComicBook.com. Archived from the original on July 18, 2018. Retrieved February 19, 2020.
^ "Blade (1998)". Box Office Mojo. Box Office Mojo, LLC. Archived from the original on January 23, 2009. Retrieved December 4, 2009.
^ "Blade Production Budget". The-Numbers. Archived from the original on November 24, 2009. Retrieved December 4, 2009.
^ "Blade II (2002)". Box Office Mojo. Box Office Mojo, LLC. Archived from the original on January 2, 2010. Retrieved December 4, 2009.
^ "Blade: Trinity (2004)". Box Office Mojo. Box Office Mojo, LLC. Archived from the original on January 3, 2010. Retrieved December 4, 2009.
^ "Blade". Rotten Tomatoes. Fandango Media. Retrieved May 10, 2022.
^ "Blade". Metacritic. Fandom, Inc. Retrieved May 10, 2022.
^ ^a ^b ^c "Cinemascore :: Movie Title Search". CinemaScore. Archived from the original on August 9, 2019. Retrieved August 9, 2019.
^ "Blade II". Rotten Tomatoes. Fandango Media. Retrieved May 10, 2022.
^ "Blade II". Metacritic. Fandom, Inc. Retrieved May 10, 2022.
^ "Blade: Trinity". Rotten Tomatoes. Fandango Media. Retrieved May 10, 2022.
^ "Blade: Trinity". Metacritic. Fandom, Inc. Retrieved May 10, 2022.
^ "Blade: The Series: Season 1". Rotten Tomatoes. Fandango Media. Retrieved May 10, 2022.
^ "Blade: The Series: Season 1". Metacritic. Fandom, Inc. Retrieved May 10, 2022.
^ "Blade for PlayStation Reviews". Metacritic. CBS Interactive. Archived from the original on August 27, 2012. Retrieved May 4, 2021.
^ "Blade II for PlayStation 2 Reviews". Metacritic. Archived from the original on December 4, 2020. Retrieved May 4, 2021.
^ Buchanan, Levi (December 17, 2004). "Blade: Trinity Review". IGN. Retrieved January 18, 2024.
^ Kit, Borys; Bond, Paul (May 7, 2013). "Marvel Cliffhanger: Robert Downey Jr.'s $50 Million Sequel Showdown". The Hollywood Reporter. Archived from the original on February 18, 2014. Retrieved May 8, 2013.
^ The Player: Wesley Snipes, Philip Winchester Interview – Comic-Con 2015. YouTube. July 10, 2015. Archived from the original on December 22, 2021.
^ Snipes "In Talks" With Marvel About Blade Reboot – IGN News. YouTube. July 10, 2015. Archived from the original on December 22, 2021.
^ Patten, Dominic (July 9, 2015). "Comic-Con: Wesley Snipes On 'Blade' Marvel Talks, 'The Player' & Spike Lee". Deadline Hollywood. Archived from the original on July 10, 2015. Retrieved July 11, 2015.
^ Galuppo, Mia (July 20, 2019). "Mahershala Ali to Star in 'Blade' Reboot for Marvel". The Hollywood Reporter. Archived from the original on July 21, 2019. Retrieved July 21, 2019.
^ D'Alessandro, Anthony (November 9, 2023). "Marvel's 'Deadpool 3' Moves To July 2024 & 'Captain America: Brave New World' To 2025 As Disney Shakes Up Schedule Due To Actors Strike". Deadline Hollywood. Archived from the original on November 10, 2023. Retrieved November 9, 2023.
^ D'Alessandro, Anthony (October 22, 2024). "Marvel Studios' 'Blade' Removed From 2025 Release Schedule, Disney Dates 'Predator: Badlands' Instead". Deadline Hollywood. Archived from the original on October 22, 2024. Retrieved October 22, 2024.
^ Zee, Michaela (August 4, 2024). "Wesley Snipes Breaks Two Guinness World Records After Blade Return in 'Deadpool & Wolverine'". Variety.

External links

[numbers-1] "Blade Franchise Box Office History - The Numbers". The Numbers. Archived from the original on November 18, 2018. Retrieved November 18, 2018.

[2] "Norrington, Dorff Teaming on Blade Spin-Off". ComingSoon.net. July 7, 2009. Archived from the original on January 26, 2022. Retrieved September 28, 2019.

[3] "'BLADE' Spinoff In Development: Will Feature STEPHEN DORFF Reprising DEACON FROST Role". Dietrichthrall.wordpress.com. July 8, 2009. Archived from the original on February 3, 2011. Retrieved January 8, 2011.

[2012Blade-4] Kit, Borys (August 14, 2012). "Fox's Daredevil Rights on Verge of Reverting to Marvel as Ticking Clock Looms (Video)". The Hollywood Reporter. Archived from the original on August 15, 2012. Retrieved August 10, 2016.

[5] Jayson, Jay (October 7, 2016). "Marvel Is Doing Something With Blade According To Kate Beckinsale". ComicBook.com. Archived from the original on July 18, 2018. Retrieved February 19, 2020.

[6] "Blade (1998)". Box Office Mojo. Box Office Mojo, LLC. Archived from the original on January 23, 2009. Retrieved December 4, 2009.

[7] "Blade Production Budget". The-Numbers. Archived from the original on November 24, 2009. Retrieved December 4, 2009.

[8] "Blade II (2002)". Box Office Mojo. Box Office Mojo, LLC. Archived from the original on January 2, 2010. Retrieved December 4, 2009.

[9] "Blade: Trinity (2004)". Box Office Mojo. Box Office Mojo, LLC. Archived from the original on January 3, 2010. Retrieved December 4, 2009.

[10] "Blade". Rotten Tomatoes. Fandango Media. Retrieved May 10, 2022.

[11] "Blade". Metacritic. Fandom, Inc. Retrieved May 10, 2022.

[Cinemascore-12] "Cinemascore :: Movie Title Search". CinemaScore. Archived from the original on August 9, 2019. Retrieved August 9, 2019.

[13] "Blade II". Rotten Tomatoes. Fandango Media. Retrieved May 10, 2022.

[14] "Blade II". Metacritic. Fandom, Inc. Retrieved May 10, 2022.

[15] "Blade: Trinity". Rotten Tomatoes. Fandango Media. Retrieved May 10, 2022.

[16] "Blade: Trinity". Metacritic. Fandom, Inc. Retrieved May 10, 2022.

[17] "Blade: The Series: Season 1". Rotten Tomatoes. Fandango Media. Retrieved May 10, 2022.

[18] "Blade: The Series: Season 1". Metacritic. Fandom, Inc. Retrieved May 10, 2022.

[19] "Blade for PlayStation Reviews". Metacritic. CBS Interactive. Archived from the original on August 27, 2012. Retrieved May 4, 2021.

[20] "Blade II for PlayStation 2 Reviews". Metacritic. Archived from the original on December 4, 2020. Retrieved May 4, 2021.

[21] Buchanan, Levi (December 17, 2004). "Blade: Trinity Review". IGN. Retrieved January 18, 2024.

[May2013HorizonFilms-22] Kit, Borys; Bond, Paul (May 7, 2013). "Marvel Cliffhanger: Robert Downey Jr.'s $50 Million Sequel Showdown". The Hollywood Reporter. Archived from the original on February 18, 2014. Retrieved May 8, 2013.

[23] The Player: Wesley Snipes, Philip Winchester Interview – Comic-Con 2015. YouTube. July 10, 2015. Archived from the original on December 22, 2021.

[24] Snipes "In Talks" With Marvel About Blade Reboot – IGN News. YouTube. July 10, 2015. Archived from the original on December 22, 2021.

[SnipesBlade-25] Patten, Dominic (July 9, 2015). "Comic-Con: Wesley Snipes On 'Blade' Marvel Talks, 'The Player' & Spike Lee". Deadline Hollywood. Archived from the original on July 10, 2015. Retrieved July 11, 2015.

[26] Galuppo, Mia (July 20, 2019). "Mahershala Ali to Star in 'Blade' Reboot for Marvel". The Hollywood Reporter. Archived from the original on July 21, 2019. Retrieved July 21, 2019.

[Nov2023Delays-27] D'Alessandro, Anthony (November 9, 2023). "Marvel's 'Deadpool 3' Moves To July 2024 & 'Captain America: Brave New World' To 2025 As Disney Shakes Up Schedule Due To Actors Strike". Deadline Hollywood. Archived from the original on November 10, 2023. Retrieved November 9, 2023.

[NoBladeRelease-28] D'Alessandro, Anthony (October 22, 2024). "Marvel Studios' 'Blade' Removed From 2025 Release Schedule, Disney Dates 'Predator: Badlands' Instead". Deadline Hollywood. Archived from the original on October 22, 2024. Retrieved October 22, 2024.

[29] Zee, Michaela (August 4, 2024). "Wesley Snipes Breaks Two Guinness World Records After Blade Return in 'Deadpool & Wolverine'". Variety.

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Blade (franchise)