No matter how you feel about 2004’s disappointing Blade: Trinity, there’s no denying that the original Blade had a lot to do with kicking off the comic-book movie trend and making studios take notice of comics as viable source material. And now a rumor suggests that Marvel Comics’ popular vampire-killing hero could be making a return to the big screen after more than a decade.
The planned launch of a new Blade comic book series back in October was delayed indefinitely by Marvel execs for a very intriguing — although entirely unconfirmed — reason, according to Bleeding Cool. The site reports that Marvel is treating the series as the blueprint for a new movie and has pushed back the publishing schedule for the series in order to develop it as one element in a larger, multimedia property.
While that’s all well and good (and not too surprising, given the character’s history), the focus of the series could have the day-walking hero serve a somewhat different role in his new adventures. This time around, the series would have Blade balancing the responsibilities of protecting the world from vampires with the duties of being a dad.
Written by Tim Seeley with art by Logan Faerber (posted below), the series’ official synopsis reads as follows:
Fallon Grey is a sixteen year old girl from rural Oregon. Nominated for Prom Queen, Captain of the debate team, most popular girl in her class. But there is another side to Fallon. A feeling like there’s something more inside of her. When terror strikes her small town, she’ll find out just how right she was. As fearsome supernatural forces hunt Fallon, she’ll come face to face with something even more shocking than the monsters on her tail. Eric Brooks…Blade…her father?! And in each other, they’ll discover the purpose they’ve each been struggling to find.
Franchise star Wesley Snipes has previously expressed interest in returning to the role he first brought to the screen in 1998, and recently indicated that he’s had talks with Marvel about that very possibility. Over the course of three films, the Blade franchise has earned more than $204 million domestically and over $415 million worldwide.
At this point, however, there’s no official word on Marvel’s future plans for Blade — either in a comic book series or a movie.
