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 its 20th 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.
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, thankfully, Goyer and company stood firm, allowing a truly great comic book movie to take from that would go on to be a trail-blazer for MCU films like Black Panther two decades later.
To say that Blade looked to revolutionize Hollywood vampire movies in 2006 would be an understatement, with Goyer's script a far cry from classic portrayals such as Francis Ford Coppola's Dracula and Neil Jordan's Interview with the Vampire. Goyer and company wanted to subvert these traditional portrayals and make "a black superhero film," with Goyer describing Blade as looking to delve into the "racial animosity between the purebloods and the turned vampires, the young Turks like Deacon Frost. And at the same time... talk about race in a subversive way, and it played into this half-breed idea, if you will — to have one foot in each world and not be accepted by either one."
With these clear social parallels and narrative direction established by Goyer and his team, it translates as nothing short of ludicrous for New Line to suggest making Blade a white character at the time. Luckily, this did not come to pass, with Goyer adamant about keeping their original vision for Blade intact and New Line eventually landing on Wesley Snipes for the iconic role. This allowed a truly great comic book movie to take form that would mark not only the first commercially successful Marvel movie but also the first acclaimed superhero movie with a black protagonist. In this way, Blade blazed the trail for other Marvel movie greats such as Black Panther in 1998 after standing firm against some of the most unfounded studio meddlings one is likely to find in the movie industry.