While the birth of the comic book blockbuster is often tracked from the release of the original Spider-Man. The movie that should get the credit is Wesley Snipes' Blade. This made a recent comment that Blade might be making a return to the screen very interesting. However, the President of Marvel Studios says that while the company expects to do something with the half-vampire down the road, any conversations about him have been greatly exaggerated.
They did ask a long time ago, and I think our answer was, 'No, we'll do something with Blade at some point.' That's still the answer. We think he's a great character, a really fun character. You know, this movie [Doctor Strange] going into a different side of the universe has fun potential for him to pop up, and between the movies, the Netflix shows, the ABC shows, there's so many opportunities for the characters to show up -- as you're all seeing now with Ghost Rider on Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. -- that rather than team-up with other studios with that character, we'll do something cool on our own. What that is and what that will be? We'll see. There is nothing imminent to my knowledge... of course, he shows up in the next episode (laughs).
The rumor that Blade might be making a return came after Kate Beckinsale said that the producers of the Underworld series had tried to setup a crossover that would have included the character, but that Marvel balked because they were planning to do something with the character. Our own Eric Eisenberg attended a roundtable with Kevin Feige where this was brought up, and while he does confirm that the conversation took place, it appears that Marvel's plans to do something with Blade are more plans to do something with all of their characters at some point, eventually.
From Kevin Feige's comments, it appears that there are in fact no plans to do anything with Blade right now. While it's possible he could pop up at some point, in some place, those places could be literally anywhere within the MCU. Rather, it's clear that Marvel just isn't looking to work with anybody else on their properties. At this point, the only "partnership" that Marvel is involved in is the one with Sony to manage the future of Spider-Man. That one is obviously a partnership of convenience that Marvel Studios wishes they didn't have to deal with. However, due to Sony's previously existing deal, they still have the rights to the character on the big screen.
It looks like we may still have to wait a little while before we see Blade again. Where would you like to see him when he does appear? should he get his own Netflix series, or does Blade belong on the big screen? Let us know your thoughts in the comments.
