Wesley Snipes had a cameo as Blade in ‘Deadpool & Wolverine’ and attended San Diego Comic-Con last week to promote it. The actor recalled getting a call from his ‘Blade: Trinity’ co-star, Ryan Reynolds, to reprise the role during a recent chat with Entertainment Weekly:
“I did not think it was possible. I didn’t think we would be able to pull it off. I didn’t think that Marvel was into it, Disney was into it,’ — also because they had Mahershala [Ali] cast for the next upcoming version of it … I thought it didn’t make sense to me, but [when] you get a call from Ryan Reynolds out of the blue after 20 years, you go, ‘Okay, I got to take this call. Let’s see what this is about.’ He told me the idea… They said ‘yes’ and ‘it’s a go.’ ‘If you’re in, we’re in.’ Here we are.”
Snipes Is Waiting For The Reboot’s Release
Snipes first played the Marvel role in 1998’s ‘Blade,’ and later returned for two sequels. The studio hired Mahershala Ali to replace him in a franchise reboot in 2019, but the project faced several issues since then.
The film was initially set for a 2023 release, but the date later moved to November 7, 2025. The original Blade actor commented on the delays in June:
“Blade, lordylordylordy. Folks still lookin’ for the secret sauce, ridin’ snowmobiles in traffic, kinda rough. Daywalkers make it look easy, don’t they?”
Mahershala Ali’s Side Is Not Happy With The Delays
Marvel teamed up with screenwriter Stacy Amma Osei-Kuffour and director Bassam Tariq for ‘Blade’ in 2021. Tariq left the project due to production changes a year later, and Beau DeMayo came aboard to rewrite the script.
After Tariq’s departure, the film went through a few more cast and crew changes, the last of which came in early June when Yann Demange left. Ali’s lawyer, Shelby Weiser, shared her frustration over the shifts and delays in a chat with The Hollywood Reporter:
“That deal was in 2019, and they still haven’t shot it, which is pretty much the craziest thing in my professional experience.”
The actor currently has other projects on the way like a new ‘Jurassic World’ sequel and ‘Spider-Man: Beyond the Spider-Verse.’
