Wesley Snipes Breaks Two Guinness World Records For Playing Blade

Deadpool & Wolverine has been in theaters for a week now, which means pretty much everyone on the Internet is aware of the film’s cavalcade of cameos. However, in case you’ve managed to go this week without being spoiled, we recommend bookmarking this story for later… Of the many famous faces to pop up in Deadpool & Wolverine, one of the biggest surprises was Wesley Snipes as Blade. Snipes first played the character in Blade in 1998 before returning to the role in Blade II in 2002 and Blade: Trinity in 2004. Thanks to his return in Deadpool & Wolverine, Snipes just beat out Hugh Jackman’s Wolverine to take the Guinness World Record for longest run playing a Marvel hero in live-action.

The record previously belonged to Patrick Stewart, who first played Professor X in X-Men (2000) and last played the role in Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness (2022). Jackman’s first outing as Wolverine was also in X-Men (2000) and his starring role in Deadpool & Wolverine had many thinking he would be the new champ. However, Snipes’ surprise appearance in the film gives him two years on Jackman. Of course, Jackman has appeared in more films as Wolverine, but the record is about years, not screentime. 

In addition to taking the world record for the longest-running live-action Marvel actor, Snipes also took the record for the longest gap between character appearances in Marvel films. It’s been nearly 20 years since Snipes last played the character in Blade: Trinity (2004). Previously, the record belonged to Alfred Molina and his 17-year gap between playing Doc Ock in Spider-Man 2 and Spider-Man: No Way Home.

Wesley Snipes Addresses Blade’s Return:

During a recent interview with Entertainment Weekly, Snipes also spoke about his big cameo in Deadpool & Wolverine. 

“Over the years, we’ve had very interesting conversations, some of them very substantive and some of them not,” Snipes shared. “So I kind of resided that I was moving on from them, which is okay. I did three of them, and I thought they turned out pretty good. Not so bad… So we move on to other things, and bigger and better things, as well.”

“I did not think it was possible,” Snipes added of his Marvel return. “I didn’t think we would be able to pull it off. I didn’t think that Marvel was into it, Disney was into it – also because they had Mahershala [Ali] cast for the next upcoming version of it … I thought it didn’t make sense to me, but [when] you get a call from Ryan Reynolds out of the blue after 20 years, you go, ‘Okay, I got to take this call. Let’s see what this is about,’” he explained. “He told me the idea… They said ‘yes’ and ‘it’s a go.’ ‘If you’re in, we’re in.’ Here we are.”

What Is Deadpool & Wolverine About?

In Marvel Studios’ Deadpool & Wolverine, Deadpool (Ryan Reynolds) will change the history of the Marvel Cinematic Universe with Wolverine (Hugh Jackman). The film also stars Matthew Macfadyen as Paradox, and Emma Corrin as Cassandra Nova, with the return of Deadpool alums Morena Baccarin as Vanessa Carlysle, Leslie Uggams as Blind Al, Karan Soni as Dopinder, Stefan Kapičić as Piotr Rasputin/Colossus, Brianna Hildebrand as Negasonic Teenage Warhead, Rob Delaney as Peter, and Lewis Tan as Shatterstar. Aaron Stanford is returning as Pyro from the X-Men film series, with Jennifer Garner rumored to return as Elektra Natchios. 

Kevin Feige, Ryan Reynolds, Shawn Levy and Lauren Shuler Donner produce with Louis D’Esposito, Wendy Jacobson, Mary McLaglen, Josh McLaglen, Rhett Reese, Paul Wernick, George Dewey and Simon Kinberg serving as executive producers. Deadpool & Wolverine is written by Ryan Reynolds & Rhett Reese & Paul Wernick & Zeb Wells & Shawn Levy.

Deadpool & Wolverine is now playing in theaters.