‘The First Purge’ Director “Would Love” to Develop Blade Project

The rise in superheroes getting films and TV series has resulted in fans turning their attention towards a character who helped make it all happen, Marvel’s half-human, half-vampire Blade. As reports emerge about the character returning to the spotlight in the future, The First Purge director Gerard McMurray would like to take a crack at the character.

“To be honest, I would love Blade. Blade was always a cool character,” McMurray shared with ComicBook.com about a superhero he’d like to tell a story with. “When I saw Wesley Snipes play him years back, I thought he was always a great character. I thought that Blade would be definitely a cool character to explore. I think he’s interesting. It’s a whole universe with Blade. So I think Blade is definitely somebody worth exploring, looking into.”

The First Purge was McMurray’s second feature film, which could make him the right candidate for the Marvel project. Marvel Studios has been demonstrating the trend of finding young talent with promising perspectives and handing them some of their biggest characters to deliver audiences new takes on familiar material.

Snipes starred as 1998’s Blade as the titular character, ultimately reprising his role in two sequels. The film debuted when Marvel was in a dangerous place financially, resulting in the company selling off many of their characters to studios for adaptations. The R-rated take on the character proved that a successful film could be made with characters that weren’t household names, resulting in 2000’s X-Men becoming a pivotal moment for superhero cinema.

Earlier this year, Snipes teased that conversations about another outing for the character have taken place.

“There are a lot of conversations going around right now and we’re very blessed to have the enthusiasm and interest in something coming from that world again,” Snipes shared with VICE. “We’ve created two projects that fit perfectly into this world and, when people see them, I think they’re only going to have a problem with deciding which one they love the most.”

He added, “All the main execs [at Marvel] and my team, we’ve been discussing for the past two years. Everyone’s enthusiastic about it, everybody gets it. But they got a business to run and they gotta square the things that they gotta figure out before they can get to it, I guess. In the meantime, we got a business to run and our own slate of things to do so.”

Stay tuned for details on the potential future for Blade. You can grab The First Purge on Digital HD now and on Blu-ray and DVD October 12th.

Do you think McMurray could be a good fit for Blade? Let us know in the comments below or hit up @TheWolfman on Twitter to talk all things horror and Star Wars!