Original Blade Star Weighs in on Upcoming Reboot

Just like the rest of us, Blade star Stephen Dorff is looking forward to Marvel Studios’ reboot starring Mahershala Ali. Catching up with ET to promote his upcoming Fox series Deputy, the original Blade star revealed he spoke with Ali a short time after the project was announced at Comic-Con last summer. According to Dorff, the move is a long time coming.

“I saw him [Ali] after it was announced [at Comic-Con 2019] and I’m happy for him,” the actor said. “I think he’ll do a great job with Blade and reinventing the franchise. It probably should’ve been done a while ago, but I think it’s good for him.”

The actor added, “I’m sure he’ll do it justice. To have such a great actor in the part of Blade for this new generation, it’ll be great.”

In Blade (1998), Dorff played Deacon Frost, an adversarial vampire who serves as the primary antagonist for the film. The character has long been an enemy to Blade, first appearing in Marv Wolfman and Gene Colan’s Tomb of Dracula #13. Blade first appeared just months prior in issue #10 of the cult classic series.

In the same interview, Dorff said he would be open to reprising his role from the original trilogy, especially after seeing R-rated comic book movies come to the forefront with the success of movies like Deadpool and Joker. “We talked about doing a Deacon Frost movie on its own at one point, me and the director of the original Blade, who is just a genius, Stephen Norrington, and it never really happened because Marvel was a new entity and Kevin Feige was kind of building this whole new universe he’s built successfully,” Dorff confirmed. “They weren’t really interested in the dark Marvel movie but maybe after Joker and all this stuff, maybe it’ll start to be trendy.”

The Blade reboot has yet to set a release date.

What characters are you hoping to see pop up in Marvel Studios‘ Blade reboot? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below or by tweeting me at @AdamBarnhardt!