Episode 181: The BLADE Trilogy

The Wages of Cinema

There was a time, if you'll gather round our podcast fire, when you had movie studios looking for anything with Vampires, and as for comic books... well, I guess Men in Black was an exception (we forgot to mention that in the episode so I'm mentioning it here, correction huzzah), but that's actually a good example of what we mean when saying comic books were neither hated or a priority for studios. They were... there, and easy to ignore. Why adapt a comic book when there were (gasp) original properties that could be pitched to executives for possible pick up! Maybe someone would find the next Tarantino, or even the next Usual Suspects! shrug. The point is, Vampires were a big deal in the late 90s, on the heels of Bram Stoker's Dracula, Interview with the Vampire and (on TV) Buffy. Luckily for us all, or maybe for some of us, David S Goyer stepped up to the plate and made a pitch from a comic character (via Marvel who around that time were verging on bankruptcy and only one property, Howard the Duck, was released by a major studio to that time) who fought and killed Vampires with special kicking skills. From what we've read, originally the comic character was white in the 70s. For the film, action star Wesley Snipes was hired and his take was to be stoic... very very very stoic. So, that could work, right? Jack and Trash-Panda Korey take on not one, or two, but *three* movies with Snipes as the titular BLADE from 1998 to 2004. Did we like them? Mostly! to varying extents! films discussed: BLADE (Directed by Stephen Norrington) (1998) BLADE II (Directed by Guillermo del Toro) (2002) BLADE: TRINITY (Directed by David s Goyer) (2004) oh and SPOILERS THROUGHOUT