Episode 68: Origin of Blade

rubbing the ladies. Yeah, holding it down for lads and Marvel. Yeah. Yeah, it's a rainbow shirt, you know, very very on brand now, very on brand, and Marvel's Marvel's embracing it there. They're like it's time. I think Tom Holland said something about like that Spider Man could be queer in the future. I'm down for it. We're ready if he we We normally start our podcast with what we're seeking out about. I know, yeah, I feel like we dedicated a whole

episode to that, which was the Comic Con episode. But if I was to add anything else to what I'm speaking out about, You're gonna be able to tell by what I'm seeking out about just simply based on the episode that you're listening to right now, which is Blade. We decided what the next step was. I was like, we gotta do Blade. I'm super excited and this one's going to be like an O g Ner difficent Word's

just me and Danny, I know. Um, Before we move on, I want you to know a personal story that when I was like six, Um, I think we're flying to Disney World. Uh, and Wesley Snipes was on my plane? So what front of my parents? And my parents asked um, because they were this, by the way, kind of annoys me whenever, Like I guess maybe like when people book, sometimes you can't get seats near you. I don't know,

I just know. UM. Side note, I was trying to sit with my partner and we had like specifically paid to sit together going to Hawaii, which is a you know, not a short trip. And then somebody was like, hey, can my kids sit here? And I was like, we literally paid extra so we could sit together to go to Hawaii together. But sure, UM, I'm going to sound like a complete um a whole, but you have kids, so I can say that, um because I'm saying it

literally to someone that has a kid. Could be like that lady who's mad at women who go to Oh, that's hilarious. It goes both ways. She was like, I can't believe all these people that don't have kids are taking up space. And that is such a very specific parental entitlement that I often see in every parent forum or board or Facebook group where it's like the world has to stop because I have a child, And I

was like, no, that's not how things work. Also, again just to remind everyone, Brad Bird, who you know makes up a large portion of Pixar peer um, said that it's not just for kids. His movies are not for kids, like there for everybody, and he hate when you call them kids movies. So but I don't know what to do. Just I don't know what to do. What if he answer this question for me? If you did pay extra so that you could sit with your partner and then someone wants their kid to sit in that seat who

didn't pay extra, And then I felt horrible. Um, I also had like massive anxiety and um would I would sometimes fly with Molly, my dog, who's also uh an yes a, and um it just was I was just like I did all the things I was supposed to do too. Yeah, oh no, there's nothing wrong with that because as a parent who has flown many times with their child, you sholl out the money to make those arrangements.

Like that sounds like somebody who went on with the hopes of like oh, no one's gonna which is uh, which is a jerk move trying to I was trying to replace the word that I originally wanted to say uh with something that we can say on the pot. But yeah, that's a jerk move to like expect because there and there are parents like that, like I'm look like when I read everyone was laughing about that parent and I was so unsurprised. I was like, oh no,

there's this parent. Like if you ever want to even look into the eye of the mall or the Gateling mall of like entitled parents, look into the l a mommy's group or it is a fight club of mothers ripping each other apart with you know, like I remember um uh Naomi's mom uh Aurora like was on the the the page and it was like asking like one one mom was like, hey, I'm having trouble breastfeeding. I'm thinking of putting her on the formula And that started

the biggest fight. Yeah, they're like you should keep trying. And some moms were like, no, if you're uncomfortable and you're having a hard time, nothing's wrong with formula. And it was just a war zone. I bet yeah, that one that that topic in particular really gets something, gets a lot of feisty ese that have a lot of opinions about kids that aren't there's um if you want

to go into a feisty area. I I don't know if you know this about me, but I ran I'm such a Disney nerd even before I was in Disney. But I ran a Disney half marathon and a full marathon because if you run both, this is something geeky. If you run both in the same year, you get a big medallion of Walt and Disney, Walt and Mickey, which is the statue that you see when you walk into Disneyland. Um so I ran one in Disney World, I ran a full marathon and then I ran a

half marathon at Disneyland. It's called the Coast to Coast Challenge. And because of that, I was a part of a group called Run Disney, which has like thousands of followers, and they are so caddy, they are so like they have nothing better to do with their time. And if they find this out, I'll probably be kicked out. But like they it blocked, they block each other. I saw one post that was like, you cannot block admins out

of this group. Like it was just wild. It'll be stuff like someone will be like, hey, I ran the Twilight Zone Tower of Terror thing and I didn't like the border that they gave me. Can we like change the border of the picture. And people will be like, can we change the border of the picture like the SpongeBob thing? And I'm like, you guys are grown adult what the heck? Also, how annoying must you be to

like just constantly run like marathons? Okay? Um, that was something I did when I was younger because I was like, oh, I wonder if my body can do this? Um, and I probably damaged my body forever. May also wonder if it can be both a human and a vamp. No, I didn't geek out about the thing I was geeking out about. Well. I forgot to mention in our comic Con episode that um, dragon ball Z actually broke a Guinness World record. Did you see that? Yeah, so they

had one for the biggest kam attack they got. I don't know, let's see what they what they had, it was nearly um, eight hundred fans that gathered to beat the record. I think that was two fifty. But they also did it on a Wednesday, so I think if they had done it on Saturday, it would have been like thousand, well over, like maybe two thousand, three thousand, who knows. Uh. But yeah, so they broke that, which is cool, and congrats to them. And you know what

else there might be vampires and drama. I don't know. I was trying to Yeah, yeah, today we're talking about Blade. That's that's that's the will cut straight to that chase. I'm hyped for the new movie. But we're gonna go down the history of the character. Definitely going to talk about those Wesley Snipe movies and you know, you know, you know, just in just all about it, just in our in our brains, in our life. We never got

to finish my story, which was that Wesley Snipes. My parents were those people who asked us to move, which I can't not speak for them. I do not support that now, I'm just kidding. Uh. They asked us to ask Mr Snipes if he could trade I think we were like very close though we were like sitting like two rows back. They just wanted to keep their eye on us, and so he switched with us. And my parents are bad people, and Wesley Snipes is a good person.

Um Blade Blade known as Eric Brooks CEE. I didn't know his name was Eric, and I let's just forget that and just call him Blade like that ruins the ruins the fantasy for me. Yeah. Yeah, I feel like,

you know, most people know him as Blade. I feel like Eric Brooks is a name you throw around when you want to like flex or like if you're doing like a Vampire Hunter character on Final Fantasy fourteen and you make the character Eric Brooks and and I nerds would be like, oh, Eric Brooks sounds like somebody that's constantly trying to friend me on LinkedIn. Yeah, Brooks wants to connect as a former coworker. Yeah no, uh yeah. Blade is such an interesting, fun character and essentially kind

of was the first successful comic book movie. I mean, that is an arguable thing, but I'd say of this current generation because I feel like the early like Superman was pretty pretty darn successful, but I feel like Marvel the first successful Marvel movie is often as credited to Blake. Is he the first black superhero film? The film? Yes, I believe so if you don't count mystery Men. I don't know if mystery Men came before after Blade, but that was my mystery Men. Shout out are We County

and will Smith an Independence Day? Because that so we had meteor Man, Blank Man, Steel are Spawn, So so technically it would be Steel if we went comic book. Steele came out before Spawn, and then Blade came out, but also Wild Wild West came out. Technically it's not a superpowered, but definitely a hero. So yeah, when it comes down to black super they definitely get the title. Blade gets the crown as the first black Marvel superhero movie.

Sorry Black Panther. Wait, I thought it was Spawn. Well, no, Spawn is image. Oh you're uh so it'll go to um yeah, yeah, yeah, so it'll be Marvel. But the first, if we're going straight, technically first black superhero movie, it's gonna go to Robert Townsend's meteor Man. Then blank Man came out after that, which I've wanted to. I've in my head wanted to come out with a blank Man reboot and make a cinematic universe with Blank Man and Meteor Man. But I'm giving all the goods up on air.

Then after that we if we want established comic book characters. Steele came out in and then Spawn, then we have Blade. Yeah. So Blade appears in Marvel. It was created by Marv Wolfman and Gene Colin. His first appearance was actually in the Tomb of Dracula number ten that came out July three, and he was a supporting character, so he appeared in another comic before he got his own. Nice. I mean, that's that's kind of how they kind of launched a lot of heroes early on. In two thousand three. The

artists uh recalled. He said, Marv told me Blade was a black man, and we talked about how we should dress and how we should look very heroic looking, and that was my input. The bandalier blades, that was Marv's idea. But I dressed him up. I put the leather jacket on him and so on, which just totally lets you know this was seventies, because that's that was there there,

that their idea of cool leather jacket, bandelier blades. They based the character's feature on a compositive black actors, including NFL football star turned actor Jim Brown. And that's why I had the nineteen seventies afro and uh and bladed knives, you know. Um, back when I was married my husband, which if y'all didn't know, I was married several years ago when I was too young to get married. Um, I don't know a lot about Jim Brown because my

husband was a Browns fan. Oh yeah, and um I had to watch them, yeah lose over and now they're the most loyal. He never cheated on me once. Yeah, they can stick through the Browns. You know, you're safe, you know, and they're humble, they're great and yeah, I went to go ahead and look up some of these Blade first arrances and I like this. I mean, I like the green jacket just popping through the nice bandalier blades.

You know, I just love it. It's such a it's it's such a fun evolution of this character, um, which we'll talk about. I hope they break out this old school outfit he's in, which one the red jacket. Oh yeah, I really like that. Yeah, that's real cool. I'm just used to Wesley's blade, I know, And it's and it kind of If you look at the newer Blades, it really does feel like his Blade influenced the comics, or

maybe the comics. Outside of Touma Dracula. He fought the scientifically created vampire Morbious in the latter serious in Adventure Interfere number twenty four that came out in October four, and it was a story written by Steve Gerbert and penciled by Pete Craig Russell. And Blade's first solo story came in Marvel's black and white horror comics magazine Vampire Tales number eight, which came out in December of nineteen seventy four, in an eleven page story by Wolfman and

penciler InCor Tony dez Yeah. This feature continued in the following issue in nineteen seventy five, with Wolfman and Chris Claremont co scripting, and then Blade appeared in a fifties six page solo story in the black and white showcase magazine Marvel Preview that was ninety five that was September of nineteen seventy five, written by Claremont. A six page backup story by Wolfman and Colin followed in Marvel Preview

number eight. I love that they put him. I love their horror comics section, which they're doing they still do and are doing more of. But yeah, I love their uh,

I love their horror like series. Oh yeah. So then Blade came in the prominence in nineties, beginning with Ghostwriter number twenty eight and the Midnight Suns in print that included the issues of Dark Old Pages of the Book of Sins, Ghostwriter, ghost Writer Blazes and so on and so forth, And then he appeared with that team in a story, and then the anthology Midnight Suns Limited number one,

which came on in April. Then he finally appeared in two solo stories in Midnight Suns A Limited number two and seven, which came out on July and October, respectively. So then, following the cancelation of Night Soccer's, Blade debuted in his first color comics series, Blade Vampire Hunter numbers

one to ten. So we had finally got his own comic. Uh, and our friend popped in Our our good friend Mark and Draco wrote Blade Sins of the Father back in Yeah, I was gonna do a friendly dig, but I'm gonna wait till concerned. We'll have to ask him for commentary. Um, so, yeah, so let's talk about Eric Brooks. Uh he was born in this is uh quoted not from me, in a whorehouse in the Soho neighborhood of London, England. In I

did not really lies that he was English. Is that in the no, but it's not in the movies and the movies it was the same thing where like his mom was pregnant with him but bitten by a vampire and she died as well while giving to him. But it's so so they kind of imported him to America, which I mean this this obviously is a very dated backstory. Yeah,

this is different than the film. Yeah, it says Eric's mother, Tara Brooks was or Tera Brooks was a prostitute at Madam Vanity's brothel when Tera experienced severe labor complications a doctor with someone who is an actuality, Deacon Frost, a vampire who feasted on her during Eric's birth and killed her. Which a fun fact about that. Deacon Frost does appear in the Blade movies and he was played by Stephen Steve Dorf. Yeah, fun fact, y'all. Stephen Dorff is the

connecting between our two blades. We have Stephen Dorff and the original Blade with Wesley Snipes, and we also have them in True Detective season three with our new Blade me herschel Ali, which means if we're going off of his appearances, then he also popped in the two thousand and four Every Time music video by Britney Spears, which means Britney Spears will canonically be in Blade. Thank you.

This is my This is my theory. Stephen Dorff is a good wingman, so this passed along certain enzymes in his own blood to the infant. This resulted in Eric's quasi vampiric abilities, including a greatly prolonged lifespan and the ability to send supernatural creatures, as well as an immunity to complete vampiresm Brooks fellow prostitutes drove off Frost before he could kill the infant as well. Teamwork, teamwork there um,

so this is kind of fascinating in this story. In the comic, he grew up living at Madame Vanity's uh and by age nine, returning home from school one December, he saw an old man being attacked by three vampires. I love that they were just out and about in this world. Very true Blood. Eric helped the old man who used a silver cane to kill the vampires and

fight off the attackers. The man was Jamal Afari, a jazz trumpeter and vampire hunter, who then moved into Madam I mean, I am down for this backstory, who then moved into He also moved into Madam Vanity's. Who how many people are living at this brothel? Um? This is I'm learning new things along with you, dear listener, who some of you already know this, but I only knew Blade from the movies, So all of this back coomic

knowledge is super dope. He trained the young Eric love that he's being trained U in both music and combat in a brothel. Who else has this backstory? You know? Captain America doesn't know. He sure doesn't. Blade was soon able to defeat many of the week younger vampires that he and Afari found. Eventually, as he got older, he became an Olympic level athlete and forbidable and and to hand combat with an expertise and edged weapons such as

knives and daggers, so notable. That's how he gained the nickname Blade, and both his fellow hunters and the vampires they opposed began to fear the young Hunter. Blade's victories made him cocky, and he joined the street gang the Blood Shadows, headed by Cyrus Cutter, later killed by Blade and a knife fight caused by Blade's disapproval of Cutter's

actions as leaders. So like, it's crazy to read this because I also I came on to Blade from the Spider Man cartoon series because when Morbius was introduced, Blade popped in the show as well, and that's why I went back to check. It's fun to read this and see all these little nuggets that they were dropping for like Blade fans. We have to take a really quick break. We're going to come back and talk more Vampire Hunter, but after this we're back talking about Blade. Yeah, we're

talking about Blade. We've just been going um through the comic books history, which has been great, lots of fun, exciting stuff that went down. Did you know that he joined a street gang called the Blood Shadows. Yeah, yeah, that's uh. That was that was really cool. Also because I like like comic book team ups, and mostly because I like the idea, and I you know, I would hope, I hope. Because we talked about how Marvel still does a lot of the horror stuff. Uh d C did

this thing a while back called Justice League Dark. It took all their magic heroes and like kind of like the darker heroes like Constantine, Swamp Thing, Zatana, and it all put them on their own. It was called Justice League Dark, and they all kind of existed within that world. And it would be fun to see a Blade run like that where you have like you know, Blade and his like vampire hunters and we just find kind of

other supernatural heroes and you know, pat them against supernatural foes. Yes, Okay, so Afari who trained Blade later fell prey to the ultimate vampire, Dracula, the young dreg god he got. You know what if I was like the County count I'm waiting for that Sesame Street Marvel crossover, I know. But yeah, then you know, just kind of went down the usual

route of different Blade comics and it was great. And they've eventually had an ongoing series that was published by Marvel Max, which is usually the more kind of adult themed, So that's definitely probably one that will be fun to check out. I'm probably gonna check that out after this because yeah, like like we both said, I'm not two versed in the comics like my Blade fandom existed with the Wesley Snipe series starting at that and now that you know he's back, I'm all on the Blade hype.

So I'm gonna be buying a few Blade books and I'll drop it into Discord, you know, the ones that kind of resonate with me. Um. And I say all that to say, we're done talking about the comic. We're coming. We're all hyped about what we're here for. Sorry, all my Blade comic book stands, we're talking about the Blade movies.

So let's get the rundown Blade, which is American superhero film directed by Steven Norrington and written by David S. Goyer, based on the Marvel Comics character of the same name. The film stars Wesley Snipes in the title role, with Stephen Dorff, Chris Christofferson, and In Bush right and supporting roles. In the film, Blade is a Damn Fear, a human vamp with vampire strengths but not their weaknesses, who protect

protects humans from vampires. Released on August twenty one, Yeah, Blade became a commercial success by gross seeing seventy million at the U S box office and a hundred and thirty one point two million worldwide. Isn't in saying that that would be considered a failure today? Yeah, I know, it's wild, like seventy million would be like wow, that did not do good. It's it's crazy the world we live in in film right now, and despite remixed reviews

from film credits, the film received. The film received positive reception from audiences and has since garnered a cult following. It is the first film and the Blade franchise, followed by two sequels, Played Too and Blade Trinity, both written by Gayer, who also directed the latter. Blade was a dark superhero film of it for its time, and the success of Blade began Marvel's film success and set the stage for further comic book adaptations. You know, everyone thought

it was iron Man, but here we go. Yeah, iron Man was the result of Blade. Without Blade, Blade crawled so iron Man could fly, Fly so Mark, so iron Man could be back in black. So now we're going to get to the film. But the funds part. Talking about movies is always starting at development. So I recently was talking about Catwoman on Jay Light's Block Busting podcast. We talked about movies we hated, I don't hate any movies. So I just tried to find a movie that I

could just effectively say was so bad. What did you what did you talk about? Catwoman? Yeah? I picked um, Um Charlie and the Chocolate Factory with um everyone's favorite, um, Johnny Depp. It was so awkward to oh Man, But yeah, I know what was interesting was the development of that film, um, which totally helps you understand why it didn't just kind of meet expectations. The idea of that movie goes as far back as Michelle Peiffer's Catwoman. That's what it was

based off of. In something that we kind of discovered in kind of researching and talking about the movie is through like it's it spent so long in development hell that by the time that they actually got towards shooting it, they've already started doing Batman forever. When it went from being this dark you know, Tim Burton Backman to this more campy verse. So now the studio is like less interested in it, and that's why they kind of tried to make it lighter. And you could just see the

like missed wires and translation in the movie. Because there are some dark elements, there are some like light elements that just do not land. And they kind of you can tell they played with the mannerism that Michelle Peiffer created in a Catwoman, but it just does not land because it's a whole different Catwoman than that one. Can you imagine halle Berry, but it's Tim Burton's Catwoman. Oh man,

that I don't think the world is right. The reason I say all that is to land you in this next sentence about Blade development, which goes as such, Marvel Studios had developed the film as early as when Rapper actor LLL Couj was interested in playing the lead role.

Would have been perfect. What deep lucy he showed that Blade have been, oh man, not scary to me, like not threatening, Like it's so it's so interesting because Blade, you know, it's funny that it they you say it had mixed reviews, because if you when he watched it, it it was two thumbs up across the whole franchise. And Wesley Snipes really just gave this like voice and soul to Blade that I just can't even imagine. Well he okay, so ello cool J to me is like that his

personality is the equivalent of the Rocks personality. They're very likable, they're your buddy. They're like even though they're like superhero action whatever, there, Wesley Snipes is mysterious. He will like kill you with a dagger, like you know, like it just is. It would be definitely different, especially because like that,

I think you really nailed it. Wesley Snipes had this thing of where he could be like totally intimidating and scary and then like smirk with his vampire teeth and everyone's like, you know, like that was like his cool thing. And then he like the throwing the glasses, slicing people up, catching it and putting it on his eyes, Like you have to be a certain coolness to do that, and uh,

that was Wesley Snipes cool. But this makes sense. So Blade was eventually of why they might have gone that route, because Blade was eventually set up at Newline Cinema with David S. Goyer writing the script, and according to goy Or, Newline originally wanted to do Blade as quote something that was almost a spoof. So I could see Llo cool J doing a spoof of Blade. Yeah, oh yeah, no, I definitely get that. And uh, but this is a

fun little negative history. After failing to get a black Panther film into production in Wesley Snipe was signed on

to star as Blade. Do you remember if you were in our the short that I produced for Notice that was like the impact of Black Panther, where we talked about it and they were essentially saying like it would not it had to exist at that time, Like it couldn't have exist at this time when they wanted it, or it wouldn't have done like like we said like one billion or whatever that that Blade, like you crawled so everyone else could fly, because I think um Blade

was easier digest in the time because you had like this kind of insular character, and also like the world wasn't ready for superhero movies. They're like, is the way superhero movies were kind of introduced was almost very smart when you think about it. You have Blade, who's this insular character in a theme that is kind of generally accepted by the masses, which is a vampire hunter. Buffy has existed, There's been many vampire movies at this point.

It would be like doing a zombie movie. People get even if you don't read comics, you get it. So then the next jump from that being Iron Man is pretty into But then you have this kind of archetype that is easy to digest, which is, you know, this weapons designer who's a millionaire playboy. Once again, it's an insular character. So then you get your iron Man out and and then after because then you had like, um, now, I'm going to mess up the order because I don't

know by heart. But then you had your Thor. You had your um uh, your Incredible Hulk, which was pretty ready to go because we already had one by then. And then you had Captain America, which was kind of like the first if you think about it, wild idea because it's this guy who's the super soldier who existed

in World War Two who got frozen in time. That like, that's when we had to go really into the suspension of disbelief in comics, and I think, you know, waiting for these things where like iron Man is an idea that could just be a a isolated idea, Like I can see an iron Man movie existing without a being Marvel. Um. I can see a Thor movie existing a the Norse God out of place in a real world to Fish out of Water movie, you know, the Hulk, you know,

checkl and Hide. The world that is Captain America is asking you to believe in multiple things. That someone will be frozen in ice and they would be able to survive multiple years, and that that person is super noble and he was in World War Two and he's this old fashioned guy and that doesn't make him a bad person. It just makes him have even stronger mortals. And once we laid the groundwork of that and brought them all

together in The Avengers, it was you. That's when you have the groundwork to where you can bring up this fictional African you know, this fictional African country that was hidden from the world, that is more advanced than any civilization ever, and they have this mysterious rock that gives

them the power to control like it the groundwork was laid. Yes, I would have loved to have a Phase one Black Panther movie, but it's just really in retrospect, it just kind of fit the ground work that was laid in a way that it was undeniable when it came out. I don't necessarily think that a Black Panther movie that came out earlier than when it did could have not been great. I think it could have been great, but

I think the groundwork that was laid made it undeniable. Well, you want to know something, This was a really interesting summer because it was had we had poc lead films. We had a Mulan that came out in June that summer, then we had Zoro that came out in July, and then we had Blade that came out in August. Yeah, we're all in the swords by this point, very much, so funny. And the one of Mulan is the poster is her like holding her sword right in the middle.

And then we got Zoro cutting through with his sword, and then we had Blade pulling out his sword. Love it. So they were they were they were laying some groundwork for future films, laying some groundwork. But yeah, so the casting, you know, they originally were looking at el O cool j and then they also looked at Wesley Snipes, obviously, Denzel Washington and Laurence fishburn I could see Laura, I mean I could see either. I could see any of those.

Denzel at that time, definitely Laurence Fishburne, who we later saw in leather Um. But Goyer Snipes was always the perfect choice for Blade. Mark Singer was the original choice for Whistler and Jet Lee was offered the role of Deacon Frost but opted to do Lethal Weapon four that also did come out that year. Um I wonder if he, I wonder which one he Lethal Weapon for did pretty well? That had that had Chris Rock in it, right, I remember?

I like that one? Um? I mean, I like that is interesting though that instead of going with like they were going to cast gently and then they cast Stephen Dorff. Fascinating Blade. So Blade was actually produced on a very low budget or million was largely done in Los Angeles, with some scenes actually being shot in Death Valley. Very hard to do, and all sets were constructed and all on all on set. Filming occurred in what was formerly the Redkin shampoo factory in Canoga Park. The effects for

the films were done by Flat Earth Productions. So here's here's the thing. So the soundtrack was peeked at number thirty six on the Billboard two hundred and the top R and B hip Hop albums. See this is what we lost? Was l O cool Jake would have if it's blade is blade blade bla bla blade, it's blade, something like a blade aminon, something like a blade aminon That's that's what it would and I would've gonna smash hit.

All right, Well, I'm gonna leave you out with this, something like a Blaine Aminon, something like a Blade Nominon. We'll be right back, and we're back. We're still talking about Blade. We're still tackling the first so very fascinating. The first cut of the film was one and forty minutes long, and it had a disastrous test screening with audiences. That's interesting. I want to know what that looked like. I wonder if they had the original brothel and people

were like, no, take that out. Um. People were in you know, the nineties weren't as progressive as we are now. Heavy edits and reshoots were implemented, which delayed the release date more than half a year. Uh. If that story had dropped now, it would be insane, like Marvel doing

a delaying their thing half a year. That's like what's happening with Sonic um, which, by the way, if he when they Okay, so they dropped the Cat's trailer while we were at San Diego Comic Con and someone tweeted and was like, we owe the team at Sonic a big apology. I'm all for that Cat's trailer. I mean, make it weird. You know so many things we we have the Lion King look normal. Just just make it weird,

be as weird as possible. Why not play around. I hope they come back, honestly, I hope Sonic Team comes back and makes him look even weirder, like just massively big teeth or no teeth at all. He just has gums. Uh. And then not even shoes, just like Ralph, he just has feet, just walks around and feet. That's somebody please draw that. Um So. The most significant change with this with this film with the reshoots was the addition of the final sword fight between Blade and Deacon Frost, which

did not exist in the original cut. So thank you audiences for speaking up and saying, hey, we need more fight scene, we need this, we need more swords. That sort of scene is probably like one of the most memorable parts because it was just so so cool. Look look at like. I'm sure if I watch it now, it's not as cool. Back then. The visual effects were

kind of cool to me. I was very into that, but the original ending had Frost turned into lamagra and become a large swirling mass of blood instead of keeping his form. This was scrapped because they couldn't get the special effects to look right. It can be seen as a special feature on the DVD. I would love to see what this looks like in trying to like make a swirling blood mass look good. O. Yeah, and here comes, here comes the biggest disrespect. Stanley originally had a cameo

that was ultimately cut from the film. He played one of the cops that came into the Blood Club during the aftermath and discovered Quinn's body on fire. The scene where Karen Deacon are talking about the cure for vampire ism initially ran a bit longer and answered the questions of how vampires would feed if everybody was turned into vampire, they would keep some humans alive in the giant blood bags to harvest them. The bags can still be seen

in the doorway during the scene. And later played an interrob part of the plot in Blade Trinity, which I'm glad they didn't add that because I feel like sometimes movie over explained and I never felt the I never question that. I've never been like, well, if everyone's a vampire, how are they going to feed? It was like they'd figure it out, but This would have been Stanley's first cameo and they cut it. Man, look at Blade really was putting the work in so iron man, they knew that.

That's where they goofed. Um. You know what's so funny is boss logic. You know boss logic? Right? Great artist? Um. He has been known to do artwork and like predict who is I think what happens? Essentially he makes like dope artwork of say Henry cavill Is Witcher and then Netflix is like, oh, this looks good. You guys like this, Okay, we're doing it. Um. Which now he's which Now he's

actually been working with Marvel, which is really cool. Like a lot of his a lot of his stuff has been But I think he had one thing that was wrong and that he drew John Boyega as Blade, and I that's another. As much as I want to see him go bad, I would love to see it for personal reasons, I just don't know. Too young. Someone someone hit me up when the news was announced and was like, sorry, you didn't get cast to Blay. I'm like, I'm too young.

Same thing when someone it's like sorry about Buck, I'm too young, Like I'm I'm very like I would turn down the role. Yeah, right, but like I would be like, nah, too old. Oh they're laughing at the sound both about the idea. Yea, yeah, yeah, I would turn down the role. J k Son that if you really feel I should do it, but yeah no, it was like, you can still be in the Blood Shadows. I know, yeah, well

I be one of the members. But when I saw my ma Herschela, I was like, oh, yeah, because they just him and Wesley, like I said on last episode, share like a similar aesthetic and build. So it feels like it's gonna be a fun take without you know, I'm sure it's not going to be the exact same thing, but I feel like it's not gonna feel like such a huge departure to people who wanted Wesley so bad. I'm sure he'll pop back up. I am sure he's gonna be. Yeah, it's gonna definitely be a cameo in there.

I can't wait to see it. It's gonna be Mr Brooks. Yeah, so the box. The film went to number one in both Spain and Australia for their opening weekends, with two hundred theaters show in the film. Spain's filmgoers earned the film one point five million in three days, whilst Australia earned it one million from a hundred and thirty two cinemas showing the film. In the Flemish region of Belgium, the film earned three hundred and twenty three thousand from

twenty cinemas. In the Netherlands earned the film two hundred forty six thousand from forty forty four cinemas, and France made one point nine million in five days from two hundred and forty one cinemas, but the films was less successful in Hong Kong with a hundred and eighty two uh thousand from twenty two cinemas. In South Africa hundred and fifty nine from sixty four United Kingdom was successful what in the film was banned from showing in Malaysia,

wildly considered to have the most controlling sensors. Despite the success of the film, Marvel shared only the flat feet of I Think I um, oh, yeah, yeah so uh ten years ago. Disney bought Marvel for four billion in two thousand nine, and a decade later it's made more than eighteen billion in the box office. But anyways, they got thousand for for a blade that's great. Uh so. Yeah,

so now we have our new Blade. Uh A lot of people are kind of debating who they think should should direct it, and people like Jordan Peel and Jordan Peele has already been like no, I'm good, which I find fascinating, I think because he is in the horror genre. But you know, he's he's making a lot of original content, um with with Us and get Out, and those are straight horror, whereas this is kind of like action fish.

It would be fascinating if if he did it. What I would want to see is I wouldn't mind some of his I like when his comedic style comes out. Um so, but yeah, he already said that he doesn't want to do it, so he's off the I know. I I would like some maybe like a director from like John Wick or The Raid. Like I want really because one, I mean, one of the most memorable things about Blade is the action, and I feel like this is a fun way to just see this and really

have me Hershela really show his action shops. So that's that's where where my head's at. Like, you know, Jordan would be cool. I really want like a big action director to really take the helm on this well, um, someone fascinating that that hopefully is getting looked at is Peter Ramsey. And Peter Ramsey uh he directed Spiderman into the Spider Verse, and I think guys saw um Shannon Tindall, who who created Cuba in the Two Strings. Uh. He tweeted and was like, um one, he directed a Marvel

character in Spiderman into the Spider Verse too. He worked with Blade m c U star Marschel Ali on Spider Verse three. Um. As pointed out by Jorge Gutierrez, who's the director of A Book of Life, he boarded on Copela's Dragon Dracula and three, I happen to know he loves vampires. Peter Ramsey for Blade, So that's really that's a you know, I want to see more of what Peter Ramsey would do. I think that's really cool. There's been a lot of a lot of different names thrown

out there. It would be awesome to have a black director take on Blade. You know. We we uh, we didn't. We kind of skipped over Blade two and three, which were great. They they kind of rounded up the series. But I I just like looking and really kind of talking about the origins of the film franchise, because like it really is, like, you know, all parts of the movie, we love them, but like the first one is kind of the most portant important because the success and the

development of Blade one is why we got to in Trinity. Yeah, but worth noting. Gilmore do Toro directed Blade too. Oh yeah, I definitely remember that, and you can definitely tell with the design of the vampires because those are where they get very intense looking. I wonder if he would come back. Oh, that was gonna be one of my picks in there.

I think Raid Fight directors. I mean, like if we had to Hodgepodge put together team go ahead and let Ramsey direct, bring the fight the stunt directors from from John Wick, and then put monster design on Giermo di Toro. You know, it's really cool, is that? Finally for Blade Trinity, David Esgoyer ended up directing it. Yeah, so he had been you know, writing them previously and stepped up to director. Yeah, you know, they happened. Yeah, they were okay, they were great.

I mean I liked them all the same. They are great. It was great trilogy. I wish there was another trilogy, but now my wishes being granted, in such a big way, and I'm so excited to what the Marvel one is. Oh you know what, I just found this article on Gizmoto and it said Blade too, which is important till del Toro does not hold up at all, and it says, is it Blade two is not as good as you remember? Um, you know, I don't remember it being great, but we

were younger, right, yeah, and I'm gonna hold onto that love. Hey, it's me and a Batman and Robin. It was fantastic film and no one disagrees with that. Uh yeah, I'm excited. I'm imagining that they're going to start the Origin story with Marshela, right yeah, probably, Yeah, I wouldn't mind if

they took some creative liberties there. And by creative liberties, like I don't know, like like both the movie and the comics starts off with his mom getting bitten diting right away, like and and like there's nothing necessarily wrong with that, but I think it's kind of like the thing of like, okay, we've seen it twice, Like what

can we do to mix it up? And I don't necessarily mean I need his mom to be like this, like strong, you know, the action part of the thing, but like, what is the world of him growing up with that powers with parents instead of just being organized, right, would you be okay if his parents like let's say his mom was a vampire and his dad wasn't and they had like a I'm going to pitch this to them, like like, so they created this half vampire child, but

their love was forbidden and they were murdered or I don't know what we were. Yeah. One thing I like about a lot of vampire stories, like especially like Vampire the masquerade and stuff, is like the faction and houses and those kind of like those always get me going, like love that. So it would be cool if like it was almost like a Saga esque story where like it's this forbidden love. But that would take too much away from Blade, so maybe we do have to start working.

It's just the first No, listen, it's like Prince of Egypt. They put him in the basket and they have him go down the river and then someone literally a mile down finds him and yeah, the only cool thing of he lives in a palace and uh Michelle Pfeiffer sings in it, and well, the the Deacon Frost like story what's kind of gnarly about it, which it wasn't explored in the movie, is like his essential like vampire daddy

killed his real mom. So like that's like, you know, that's a like the whole thing that wasn't explored that you might be explored. We'll see. This is all speculation. No, I have my hands on the script and yeah, okay cool, let me let me get my hands on those two. What do you have coming up, Danny? Well, I'm not sure. I don't even know what day it is, um, but you know, follow me on all the things, like at miss Danny Fernandez and tweet us your blade stuff. Did

you like Blade Trinity? We want to know what did you like about it? Probably Ryan Reynolds goatee. Um. I love when he was like still figuring himself out that, you know, when he was like an amNY Ville and like those are like, oh I'm super and then he was like, oh no, I should stick with the comedy stuff. Okay, good, Yeah, I'm actually really funny. It's deadpool. This works for me. Yes, tweet us your your vampire? What are your other favorite

vampire properties? I if he did you watch True Blood? Oh? Yeah, it was I was a fan for many reasons. It was very spicy, it was hoof by. I enjoyed it. Uh yeah, so follow at netificent as well. Um tweet us your stuff. Check out our Tea Public page, Tea Public dot com, um slash Nerdificent and uh, we have a lot of cool shirts in there, some of us.

If you buy one, please tweet at or Instagram so we can smash that retweet and you know me if I y w A d i w E on Twitter and Instagram, if he's on Twitch, Discord, dot g g slash salt Squad to keep the conversation going. Uh, if you're in the Portland area, I will be there on the tenth of August at ten pm with a white women guys doing some uh doing some improv. So if you're if you're in Portland's and you're like, man, I want to see if you do improv, you can definitely

do that. Will be in St. Louis in a couple of months and also Houston, Texas, So if that is anywhere near you or where you stay, stay tuned for that and pay attention to the you know Twitter, I'll be putting it out as always, Stay nerdy, stay neartie