Original Blade Star Stephen Dorff Has Zero Faith In Marvel's New Blade Movie
The first "Blade" movie has a devoted fanbase, and for good reason: it's an R-rated comic book flick that managed to be fun, funny, and ridiculously cool. From the opening blood rave to the final showdown between the day-walking vampire hunter Blade (Wesley Snipes) and his nemesis Deacon Frost (Stephen Dorff), "Blade" is a perfect time capsule of everything people found delightfully edgy in 1998. Based on the Marvel comic book character and directed by Stephen Norrington, who wrote and directed the bonkers and badass sci-fi flick "Death Machine" a few years before, "Blade" is truly a beloved cult classic of its time. So it's a little understandable that some folks might be protective of it, especially when they're, say, the guy who played Deacon Frost.
In a recent interview with The Daily Beast, Dorff shared his feelings on the upcoming "Blade" film that will be a part of the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU), and they weren't exactly optimistic. Dorff has been pretty vocal about his lack of faith in Marvel in the past, and he didn't mince words when discussing the current state of comic book cinema.
No love for the MCU
Dorff has done a little bit of everything over the years, starring in roles ranging from Britney Spears' boyfriend in the "Everytime" music video to the playing a cinematic terrorist in John Waters' "Cecil B. Demented." He's been through the industry ringer and has some pretty strong opinions, including the idea that things were better in his day:
"My life is pretty weird, but look, I love all kinds of movies. If comic-book movies were more like when I started when we made 'Blade,' or the few that have been decent over the years, like when Nolan did 'The Dark Knight' and reinvented Batman from Tim Burton, who's obviously a genius...when they were interesting, like when Norrington did 'Blade,' and Guillermo [del Toro] was f***ing around in it. But all this other garbage is just embarrassing, you know what I mean?"
That elitist attitude has Dorff sounding a little more like Cecil B. Demented than he probably realizes, but it's also pretty funny that he completely left off the third film in the "Blade" trilogy, "Blade: Trinity," which had a notoriously messy production and was a critical and box office flop. I love all three "Blade" films (yes, even "Trinity") and am extremely curious to see how Marvel tries to fit such an adult character into the generally family-friendly MCU, but dismissing all comic book cinema outside of Nolan, Burton, del Toro, and Norrington is pretty silly.
Even if the MCU Blade is bad, it's good for the original
Dorff went on to trash both the MCU and the DCEU, making fun of "Black Adam" before immediately joking that "Marvel is used to me trashing them anyway." ("Black Adam" is DC, not Marvel, but I'll let you have this one, Dorff.) He continued:
"How's that PG 'Blade' movie going for you, that can't get a director? [laughs] Because anybody who goes there is going to be laughed at by everyone, because we already did it and made it the best. There's no Steve Norrington out there."
The "Blade" movie has some very talented people involved, and they could take the franchise in a different direction that still works for the character. Norrington's "Blade" is a great movie that deserves lots of love, but that doesn't mean that a new "Blade" is automatically going to be terrible! Besides, if it is terrible, it's just going to make everyone remember the original more fondly, and it's going to introduce a whole new generation to the franchise that can go back and discover the original for the first time. So yeah, maybe the 1998 "Blade" is the best "Blade" there ever was or ever will be, but it doesn't hurt anyone or anything to give someone else a chance. Some mothersuckers are always gonna try to ice skate uphill, so why not just let them?