Marvel’s Blade Concept Art<\/p>\n
Having directed Blade 2<\/a>, we asked del Toro why he thought this project fell through \u2014 and, for him, it\u2019s all about Wesley Snipes\u2019 unmistakable star power.<\/p>\n \u201cI’m telling you \u2014 and I mean it because I know it \u2014 50% of the \u2018Blade-ness\u2019 of Blade is Wesley Snipes. He is not the most linear actor to deal with, right? But every time he stood in front of the lens, I said, \u2018That\u2019s a movie star,\u2019\u201d he answered.<\/p>\n \u201cFor example, I showed him a gun we designed \u2014 beautiful, [Dieter] Reinhardt, Ron Pearlman ends up using it, with a blade on the front \u2014 and he looked at it. \u2018Not for Blade. Cold gun, but not for Blade.\u2019 I said, \u2018Why?\u2019 He said, \u2018Because Blade is the weapon.\u2019 He said, \u2018I don’t want the toys. I want the man. The man is a dangerous guy. You give me too many toys, and that\u2019s the Batmobile and the Bat belt. That’s not Blade.\u2019 And I went, \u2018Ah, this guy knows it.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n While del Toro went on to joke that Snipes is actually “100%” of Blade\u2019s “Blade-ness,” he said the other part of the equation comes out to \u201cthe filmmaker articulating,\u201d and described how he studied Stephen Norrington’s filmmaking style to bring his own unique flair to the IP for its second film.<\/p>\n \u201cI had four or five moving boxes worth of dailies from [Stephen Norrington’s] movie,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd I studied all those VHS tapes. I understood exactly how he shot it. He did some formations that were really extraordinarily weird. For example, he had a low camera with a longer lens in front of a high camera with a wide lens facing each other. \u2026and then I started his formations and I said, \u2018Okay, I’m going to go at it differently.\u2019 <\/p>\n \u201cBut there is one setup on Blade 2, which is 13 cameras working at the same time like a ballet. This camera is moving this way and then it crosses this one right on time for my cut. So I would cut before we shoot. So what they did is extraordinary. I know it.\u201d<\/p>\n He also praised Norrington\u2019s first Blade film for helping to break the mold of comic book movies, crediting it for ushering in a new age of superhero flick that has continued into the modern day.<\/p>\n \u201cEvery time [Snipes] landed, every time he turned, he\u2019s a Neil Adams comic book [character]. And he has the natural sort of comic book [look]. I think Blade 1, Steve\u2019s movie, changed the history of comic book movies for me, period. Because before that, you had either the cleanliness, the beauty, and sort of wholesomeness of Richard Donner’s Superman, or you had the quirkiness of Tim Burton\u2019s Batman. But this is what ushered the \u2018tude, the edge. Without Steve Norrington’s Blade, I don’t think there is The Matrix. I don’t think there is X-Men. I think what they did is monumental. And then I inherited and was completely, irresponsibly happy to do that.\u201d<\/p>\n In a funny anecdote, del Toro told us that he discovered Red Bull while filming Blade 2, which he affectionately dubbed his \u201ccocaine movie\u201d due to the fact that he was chugging \u201c40\u201d cans of the energy drink per day.<\/p>\n \u201cActually, [Blade 2] and Pacific Rim are probably the two most fun movies I’ve ever shot. I really had fun. It may have been helped by the fact that Red Bull had just come out, and I didn’t know how to use it. So I was drinking, and I’m not joking, about 40 Red Bulls a day.<\/p>\n \u201cI was like in a cocaine movie. I was like, \u2018Come on, let’s go!\u2019 And I would order cases and cases of Red Bull and throw them to the extras. When I went back to America, Red Bull started traveling from Europe to there. And my doctor said, \u2018You cannot consume more than four.\u2019 I was drinking 40. The arterial damage, man!\u201d<\/p>\n While Wesley Snipes was able to reprise his role as Blade in Deadpool & Wolverine<\/a>, it\u2019s unlikely that he\u2019ll return to the part for a future Blade movie \u2014 if another one ever gets made in this lifetime, that is. Marvel Studios boss Kevin Feige famously admitted that he felt like a \u201cgigantic loser and failure\u201d<\/a> for not getting Ali\u2019s Blade off the ground,\u201d a statement that Ali wholeheartedly agreed with in a subsequent interview.<\/p>\n \u201cTo this day, I don\u2019t know why it didn\u2019t happen. I just know that Kevin said it was the biggest failure of his career, and I agree,\u201d he said. \u201cHe should feel that way.\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n Our full, extended interview with Guillermo del Toro is available to watch now<\/a>. If you’re hungry for more interviews, you can check out a previous episode of the IGN30 Icons series, where we chatted with Ken Levine<\/a>, creator of famed games like System Shock 2<\/a> and its spiritual successor, BioShock.<\/p>\n Virginia (she\/her) is IGN\u2019s News Editor. With ten years of experience reporting on games and entertainment, she\u2019s got a storied background in the fighting game community, influencer news, and viral online trends. Find her on Twitter at @TheeMissGlaze<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In the newest episode of our IGN30 Icons series, Blade 2 director Guillermo del Toro revealed why he…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":631327,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[146,85,46,397],"class_list":["post-631326","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-movies","tag-entertainment","tag-il","tag-israel","tag-movies"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/631326","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=631326"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/631326\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/631327"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=631326"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=631326"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=631326"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Virginia](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/1790706496_50_XD1zX2FT-1782150223173.jpg\")
<\/p>\n