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It is an important, and often overlooked historical fact, that one movie saved superheroes as a modern cinematic genre. Batman Forever made the wheels fall off, and Batman & Robin then drove the whole show face-first into a wall. It was done, and superheroes were a Hollywood joke. Then, just one year after Batman & Robin, Blade changed everything.
The 1998 film showed Hollywood where they were going wrong. Respect the source material, respect the audience, accept that comics aren’t just for kids, and treat potential audiences as adults. The result… a smash hit that is still fondly regarded today, and a highly profitable franchise.
No Blade, no X-Men, and no Spider-Man, that early 2000’s cinematic false dawn for superheroes, before Marvel’s terrible licensing decisions came back to haunt them. Arguably, no Blade and no Christopher Nolan Batman movies, then no Iron Man… and we all know where that led.
The one-time director of the new Mahershala Ali Blade reboot, now departed, talked about this. Bassam Tariq told Indiwire once that he credits Snipes for kick-starting the rebirth that led to the current situation:
“What’s exciting about the film that we’re making is [there] hasn’t been a canon for Blade, as we’re reading through the comics and everything. Him being a daywalker is the one thing that’s been established, and you know we can’t deny what Wesley Snipes did, which was he basically got this whole ball rolling. A Black man created the superhero world that we’re in, that’s just the truth.”
Snipes himself has also talked about his feeling that the movie doesn’t always get its due:
“Some people forget or overlook my/our contribution to this current trend. The ‘Gaming’ community knows and the streets give us credits, but the movie world frequently plays us like the ‘ugly stepchild’ or the ‘kitchen help,’ especially when the conversation revolves around the ‘boys in tights’ or ‘the bat’.”
The Blade reboot is a highly troubled production, with no release date set once again. Maybe they need to talk to Snipes, and return to the principles discovered by Blade about how to make a good coming book movie all over again?
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