Marvel's Blade Survived The Worst Studio Meddling Of All Time
Marvel's Blade survived the worst studio meddling of all time ahead of its 1998 cinematic release. On its20th anniversary in 2018, Blade's cast and crew, including actors Wesley Snipes, Steven Dorff, Donal Logue, and Sanaa Lathan, producer Peter Frankfurt, and screenwriter David Goyer provided an oral history of Blade's inception to Entertainment Weekly. The contents of their first-hand Blade accounts are enthralling, with Goyer's description of inter-studio politics and meddling as illuminating as they are shocking some 24 years later.
The evolution of the concept of Blade is fascinating, with Goyer and Frankfurt originally hoping to make a Black Panther movie following Marvel's bankruptcy filing in 1996. However, when these character rights proved unobtainable, the pair instead set their sights on making a Blade trilogy adapted from the classic Marvel comics narrative. Goyer subsequently pitched Blade to New Line Cinema as "the Star Wars of black vampire films," with this origin story just one of many tidbits to come out of Blade's 2018 oral history that enhances the movie's already glowing legacy.
Related: How Marvel Should Make The MCU Blade Movie
Yet undoubtedly one of the most shocking stories from Blade's oral history is how the movie survived one of the worst potential studio meddlings of all time. With Blade proving to be far more expensive than its initial budget in 1997, Goyer recounts how the studio approached Blade's creative team and said, "can Blade be white?" to which Goyer replied, “absolutely f—ing not. Like, that is just terrible. You cannot do that.” This was a particularly outrageous ask from New Line at the time, given Blade's storyboard that intrinsically wove Blade's race into his character, and,
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