'Blade' Turns 20: Celebrating Marvel's First Big Success

'Blade' Turns 20: Celebrating Marvel's First Big Success:

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 Long before the days of the Twilight saga and sparkly Robert Pattinson, there was a vampire movie unlike any other. It had gothic, operatic tunes set against rave classics. Blood didn't drip seductively from anyone's lips, it was sprayed from the ceilings. Instead of pre-teens looking morose in hoodies, we had a bloke looking seriously badass in a full-length, black leather jacket. We're talking, of course, about Blade, Marvel's hugely popular late '90s flick starring Wesley Snipes as the titular vampire hunter.  Having been released on 21 August 1998, the film has just celebrated its 20th anniversary - though its legacy clearly lives on as Marvel's first big success story. In fact, even Snipes reckons that the popularity of the franchise helped inspire the current hits that Marvel is now churning out.  "There were empires and institutions that were built off the Blade franchise," Snipes told the Telegraph in 2014. "I mean, look at Marvel now, to this day. It's a megalith!" He added: "More and more people are recognizing the contribution that Blade made to this resurgence, or this model, this new business.  "At the time when Blade was offered to me, my management and my agents all thought I was out of my mind for doing it. They told me, 'You know, you're a classically trained actor. Why would you want to even play a vampire from a comic book?'  "I was, 'Everything you're saying is right, but here's the thing - I've never seen a movie like this'."  In fact, it even remains so iconic that, just a few years ago, club promoters were throwing their very own Blade-style blood raves, which saw thousands of party people get drenched in fake blood while dancing to the Crystal Method. While its sequel, Blade II, proved to be a sterling follow-up, the same can't be said for the franchise's third offering - with Blade: Trinity having grabbed itself a not-so-respectable 25 percent on Rotten Tomatoes.  At the time of its release, Time Out's Nigel Floyd said that the sequel had 'all the appeal of reheated, congealed blood', while the Washington Post's Desson Thomson also said: "If ever there was a case for quitting while you're behind, this Blade is it - ready to be buried in a vat of garlic."  Of course, it wasn't all peachy on set of Blade: Trinity, either. In an interview with The AV Club, Patton Oswalt - who played vampire hunter Hedges - said that Snipes wouldn't ever come out of his trailer, and would only come down to the set for close-ups.  Oswalt also claimed that he once 'tried to strangle the director, David Goyer' - who has since referred to the experience as the most 'personally and professionally difficult and painful thing I've ever been through'.Credit: PA Even though the last film in the franchise didn't exactly let things go out on a high, Snipes has often said he's up for shooting another Blade film. However, Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige revealed in 2016 that the answer was still, sadly, no. "They did ask a long time ago and I th
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