Goth Chick News: Polish Up the Sword and Buff the Leather, Blade is (Maybe) Back
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For years now fans have been waiting for something to come of all the rumors regarding the Wesley Snipes, day-walking, bad-ass known as Blade.
In case you haven’t been keeping track, we last left the story back in 2004 with Blade Trinity, where personally I first learned to appreciate Ryan Reynolds on many levels, not to mention Dominic Purcell. Add in a fairly good storyline, an awesome soundtrack and a strong female character in the form of Jessica Biel laying waste with her compound bow and what you get is a movie that stands up quite well, a dozen years later.
But a lot of water has flowed under that particular dam in the interim, and Marvel may have trouble committing to another movie with Snipes in the lead role.
According to Patton Oswalt, who played weapons master “Hedges,” Blade Trinity was a troubled production indeed and Wesley Snipes appeared to have had some sort of mental breakdown during the shoot in Vancouver. He refused to speak to director David S. Goyer and often would not come out of his trailer; he would only respond to the name ‘Blade,’ and if he communicated with anyone, it would be via post-it notes. Ryan Reynolds corroborated this while promoting the film; saying that Snipes would ignore the entire cast, but he once acknowledged Reynolds by saying “Keep your mouth shut. You’ll live longer.”
By July 29, the sixteenth day of the Fantasia Festival, I was beginning to feel exhausted. I’d had some thoughts of watching three movies that Friday, but in the end could only manage two. I made it down to the Hall Theatre in the afternoon to watch the Korean satire Collective Invention (Dolyeonbyuni), then came back right after for the raucous Japanese comedy Too Young To Die! (Too Young To Die! Wakakushite Shinu). Neither struck me as flawless, but both in different ways were interesting experiences.
At 7:30 PM on Thursday, July 28, I was in a seat in the De Sève Theatre waiting to see a screening of an American independent horror-comedy called Lace Crater, about a woman who catches a venereal disease from a ghost. After that I’d cross the street to the Hall theatre for a showing of the Iranian horror movie Under the Shadow. I wasn’t entirely sure what to expect from either film, which from experience I knew was often the best way to come to a screening at Fantasia. I was pondering this when the lights went down and Adam Kritzer, producer of Lace Crater, was introduced to the crowd. He thanked us for coming, and urged all of us in the audience to turn to our neighbours, whether we knew them or not, and say whether we believed in ghosts. There was an aisle to my left. I glanced to my right. The man beside me shrugged. “Not particularly,” he said in French. “Same here,” I replied. 
