Wesley Snipes didnt play Blade. He became Blade. The stories of his refusal to break character while playing Marvel Comics vampire hunter are legendary, particularly from the set of the series final film, 2004sBlade: Trinity.According to co-star Patton Oswalt, Snipes was so deepinside Blades head that after the lines of communication with director David S. Goyer broke down, the star began sending him Post-It notes signed From Blade.

While thatmight have been the most extreme example of Snipes Method dedication, he was intensely invested in the character from the beginning. In 1998, he did at least one promotional interview forBladeas Blade. Im still looking for him to this day,Snipes growls about the vampire that killed Blades mother,moments before he refers to Wesley in the third person.

Agrown man talking with utter sincerity about being found as a child byKris Kristofferson and raisedas a vampire hunter is undeniably silly. Still, this clip shows just how ahead oftheir time Snipes and the firstBladewere. In 1998, practically no one in Hollywood took comic books seriously at all, much lessthisseriously. From the perspective of 2020, its clear thatBladeis one of the most important and influential movies of the last quarter century.

Before talking aboutBladeitself, its important remember the cinematic landscape in which it was created. In 1998, comic-book movies were at their lowest ebb in years. The two DC Comics adaptations the year prior to Blades release Joel Schumachers camptacularBatman and Robin and Shaquille ONealsSteel were such critical and commercial flops that Warner Bros. wouldnt make another DC Comics movie for seven years. For all intents and purposes, the DCMovie Universe was dead.

That was still significantly better than Marvels box-office track record at that time. While the company had been one of the two biggest names in comics for more than 30 years, just one of their properties had ever been adapted into a theatrically-released feature film and it was the disastrous live-action version ofHoward the Duck. The previous attempt at a Marvel movie beforeBlade was Roger CormansFantastic Four, a production so atrocious the filmhas never been officially released to this day. In 2020, the Marvel Studios logo is practically a license to print money. Back then, it was box-office poison. (Or rather it would have been considered box-office poison if Marvel had their acts together enough to have their own movie logo at all; one wouldnt arrive until 2002sSpider-Man.)

Although Tim BurtonsBatmanhad become an enormous blockbuster in 1989, almost all the superhero and comic movies made in its wake were critical or commercial flops or both. The rare success stories 1991sThe Rocketeer, 1996sThe Phantom were period pieces. Comic books were about as far out of the zeitgeist as you could get. They did not speak to contemporary ideas, at least as far as movies were concerned. Superheroes were relics; hokey, old-fashioned adventure stories for kids.

NotBlade. This was a comic-book movie setina present-day world filled with vicious vampires and modern hip-hop and technomusic. The very first action sequence literally showers an underground rave with blood.Bladeearned its R rating unheard of in its day, and almost as rare now, even in a landscape dominated by comic-book movies with extensive blood and gore. Its hero even dropped the occasional F-bomb when the mood struck him:

Whats also evident inthe scene above is that Blade has no concern about a secret identity. He strolls into a hospital, shoots at vampires, tells off cops, and leaves with an important witness with no attempt to hide his face. This was another major break with superhero movies to that point, which were entirely consumed with Supermans and Batmans and assorted other costumed do-gooders who expended enormous energy (and screen time) disguising their true identities.

Althoughthis might not seem like a huge change, most Marvel movies followedBlades lead. The X-Men ditched the masks that had been a key part of many of the characters costumes for decades.Sam RaimisSpider-Man trilogy maintained Peter Parkers secret, but then firstIron Manended with Robert Downey Jr.s Tony Stark declaring to the world that he was his armored alter ego. From that point on, the Marvel Cinematic Universe rarely considered secret identities again.

Blades armor which debutedaboutsix months beforeThe Matrixmade leather and black overcoats the de facto costume for an entire generation of action heroes also broke from the tradition established by the Burton Batman movies of encasing superheroes in mountains of stiff latex.Wesley Snipes Blade costume is elaborate but it doesnt restrict his movement, allowing director Stephen Norringtontodelivercomplex action sequences highlightinghis stars martial-arts skills.

Lets take a look at the difference in action between BurtonsBatmanand NorringtonsBlade.During Batmansbig action finale, Michael Keaton mostly stands in place while bad guys jump and kick around him. In the most extremeexample, one of theJokers goons performs an absurd gymnastics routine,flipping down an entire hallway,then leaps at Batman with a kick. Keaton watches all of this transpire without moving a muscle, then drops the guy with one punch and some kind of Bat-gadget he extends from his hand. Fight over.It might be more accurate to call this an inaction scene.

Compare that with part of the finale fromBlade, where Snipes takes on a whole army of vampires working for the evil Deacon Frost (Stephen Dorff):

Keatons Bat-costume gave him the illusion of an outlandish comic bookphysique in exchange for all of his mobility. Snipes, in contrast, needed no help in the muscle department. When hes stripped down to the waist late in the film,he isabsolutely jacked.Huge muscles were standard operating procedure in action moviesduring theyearsdominated by Schwarzenegger, Stallone, and Van Damme. After Batman, they were far less common in comic-book movies untilBlade.

The very first shot of that fight scene shows Snipes landing in a three-point stance, amodern cliche of Marvel moviesthat was a total rarity in live-action whenSnipes did it. In general, Snipes movement as Blade was way ahead of his time. Without a bulky rubber costume, he was able tostrike with equal amounts of grace and violence,like a cross between Bruce Lee and Mikhail Baryshnikov.Superheroes of that era could sometimes look impressive at rest; thinkVal Kilmer ominous looming over the Batcave in his jet-black armor. But they rarely seemed impressive in motion. Snipes Blade looked faster and more agile than everyone else on screen. He really sold the idea that this guy is more than human.

Amusingas that in-characterinterview with Bladefrom 1998 looks,it clearly shows that all of these elements were deliberate onSnipes and Norringtons part.Playing a comic-book character is the best of all worlds because anything goes,Snipes says in Blades signature snarl during the Bladeinterview. You create a different voice, create a different look, different sound, different way of moving, talking.

Snipes concludes that interview with a prediction. I think were creating a shadow world, he says, where the bridge between what is reality and the unreal is very small. Not only didBladedo exactly that, but that shadow world (and Snipes attitude and physicality) became the template for nearly every Marvel movie that followed. Wesley Snipeshad a goofy way of showing it, buthe saw the future. InBlade, hehelped build a bridge to a new way ofbringing comic books out of the shadows.

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Blade Is One of the Most Influential Movies of the Last 25 Years - ScreenCrush