Wesley Snipes Not Involved in MCU’s ‘Blade,’ so He’s Making His Own ‘Blade-Killer’ Movie Instead

After Disney and Marvel announced in July 2019 that Mahershala Ali was joining the Marvel Cinematic Universe as Blade, original “Blade” star Wesley Snipes issued a statement saying he was comfortable with the MCU rebooting the beloved comic book character. Snipes starred as the eponymous half-vampire in three movies: “Blade” (1998), “Blade II” (2002), and “Blade Trinity” (2004). David S. Goyer wrote all three films, with Guillermo del Toro directing the second installment. While Snipes is comfortable with the MCU tackling “Blade,” he’s taking matters into his own hands by developing a new supernatural action film that he’s nicknamed the “‘Blade’-killer,” meaning it will outdo the “Blade” films.

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“I don’t have any involvement, but I support the young artists and I support Marvel in their business decisions,” Snipes told Uproxx. “It’s a beautiful thing. [Mahershala Ali has] got a heck of a job on his hands.”

Snipes said of making the original “Blade” trilogy, “We were white belts then, wait until you see now what we do as black belts,” alluding to a new action movie that “is going to smoke all of the ‘Blade’ stuff.”

What is the project? “It’s what we call our ‘Blade’-killer, our ‘Blade’ on steroids,” Snipes said. “And we set our character in the world of shape-shifters and a little bit of time travel. But the action is going to be…Well, we did white belt action in ‘Blade.’ Now we’re going to do black belt action.”

“It’s wonderful what we did [on ‘Blade’], but, brother, we’re so much better than we were then. So much better now than we were then,” Snipes continued. “Yes, indeed. And we’ve got more tools. Some of the things that were innovated in the ‘Blade’ franchise in the first film are now standard in the Marvel universe and all of these other action movies. And the technology allows them to do a lot of things we couldn’t do then. Now give us the technology, and we’ve already got the skills and the flavor. It’s popping, baby!”

Next up for Snipes is a supporting role in “Coming 2 America,” streaming March 5 on Amazon Prime Video. The MCU’s “Blade,” meanwhile, is moving forward with “Watchmen” screenwriter Stacy Osei-Kuffour penning the script. Osei-Kuffour is making history as the MCU’s first Black female writer.