Wesley Snipes Comments on Learning Blade Was Almost Whitewashed

While X-Men and Spider-Man are often credited with sparking interest in Marvel characters with audiences, Blade debuted before both films and quickly gained a passionate following, inspiring two sequels and a TV series. A recent report from Entertainment Weekly confirmed that the studio wanted to make the character white for the adaptation, a notion which star Wesley Snipes recently mocked.

“I wasn’t aware that that was part of the history,” the actor shared with Yahoo! Movies. “Can you imagine the creative individual who thought of that?”

When asked how he thought a white Blade would have worked out, Snipes joked, “Wouldn’t be this! That’s for sure, baby. Wouldn’t be as cool, let me tell you that.”

With the character having debuted before the creation of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, Blade has no definitive future to be incorporated into an upcoming film, despite Snipes regularly offering his services to reprise his role as the character. More than just a role, the films offered Snipes the opportunity to pay homage to a classic corner of genre cinema.

“The idea was that I was rehashing or at least touching the coattails of William Marshall, who did Blacula back in the 1970s, and the idea of having the Shaft coat, the long coat, and then being able to do martial arts. It was the perfect storm for me,” the actor noted. “It was a great opportunity to do something that was rare, and would be a lot of fun and loved by the cats in my neighborhood.”

Luckily for Snipes, and for the series, the concept of making the character white was quickly rejected, thanks to writer David S. Goyer.

“I suggested Blade, as a trilogy,” Goyer detailed to Entertainment Weekly. “I remember I came in and said, ‘I’m going to pitch you the Star Wars of black vampire films.’ So I pitched it as this racial animosity between the purebloods and the turned vampires, the young Turks like Deacon Frost. And at the same time I wanted to talk about race in a subversive way, and it played into this half-breed idea, if you will — to have one foot in each world and not be accepted by either one.”

He added, “At one point the [studio] came to us and said, ‘Can Blade be white?’ and I said, ‘Absolutely f-cking not. Like, that is just terrible. You cannot do that.’”

Reports regularly surface regarding Marvel’s plans for Blade, though no concrete details have been announced. Stay tuned for details about the character’s future.

How do you think audiences would have reacted to the character being whitewashed? Let us know in the comments below!

[H/T Yahoo! Movies]