X-Men ’97 Creator Beau DeMayo Pitches the Perfect Blade 4

Movies

***SPOILERS FOR DEADPOOL & WOLVERINE***

Marvel’s perfect Blade movie was just pitched – not officially, but online – by the last guy any of us would have expected just a few months ago. For the past several years, Marvel has been trying to put a Blade movie together with Mahershala Ali in the lead role, but it’s fallen apart over and over, losing writers and directors like dead skin after a sunburn. Throughout the long development of this film, many fans (like me) have said that we’d rather have another Blade movie with the actor who played him in the 1998 film, its stellar sequel, and the third one we’d rather not talk about: Wesley Snipes. Making this even more enticing is that Snipes returned to play the character in Deadpool & Wolverine for an extended cameo wherein he remarks, “There’s only one Blade; there’s only ever gonna be one Blade,” after which Deadpool raises his eyebrows (behind his mask). Many – again including myself –wondered if this meant that Marvel was indeed canceling the Blade reboot and working on the movie fans actually want with Snipes. Adding to the fervor was Ryan Reynolds, who posted this on X:

There is no Fox Marvel Universe or MCU without Blade first creating a market. He’s Marvel Daddy. Please retweet for a Logan-like send off. #DeadpoolAndWolverine pic.twitter.com/wGv2ixBT8G

— Ryan Reynolds (@VancityReynolds) August 5, 2024

Yep, fans want Snipes back, and the constant collapse of the reboot looks more and more like a sign that it shouldn’t happen. But what would the story be should the one true Blade return? Beau DeMayo has a great idea that he shared on X. DeMayo was the showrunner for X-Men ‘97, the revival of the beloved X-Men animated series from the 90s that no one expected to be good but which ended up, by all accounts, being a damn fine show that did the X-Men justice. Unfortunately, Marvel has parted ways with DeMayo, which is unfortunate, not only because of how popular X-Men ‘97 was but because he knows where to go with Blade. Here’s his pitch:

Vampire dystopia where they learned to daywalk and took over. Humans are cattle. Brother Voodoo, part of the human resistance, learns #Blade was desiccated/entombed and resurrects him so they can hunt Varney and the Darkhold cult to wipe out all vampires. Treat it like Kurosawa. pic.twitter.com/IODmIwZ62K

— Beau DeMayo (@BeauDemayo) August 11, 2024

Admittedly, I had to do some research, as this is a corner of the Marvel Universe I know more from the movies and cartoons than the comics. Brother Voodoo is a voodoo practitioner and superhero with mystical powers, which would account for his ability to resurrect Blade. (Although, from what I’m reading, this would be very difficult for him, which is better for the story anyway; bringing someone back from the dead shouldn’t be easy.) Varney is even more interesting; in Marvel, he is the first vampire who, according to Wikipedia (I know), was created by Atlantis. He is based on a Gothic novel about vampires that predates Bram Stoker’s Dracula called Varney the Vampire; or, the Feast of Blood, which established certain elements of vampire lore, like their fangs. So, Blade would be up against the creator of vampires during the vampire apocalypse, fighting to reverse the very thing he spent his life trying to prevent – ice skating uphill, to put it a certain way, although I’d bet on Blade before the hill every time.

This sounds fantastic, and it sucks that it will never happen. I don’t just mean because Marvel won’t work with Beau DeMayo anymore, either. There’s no way Marvel, in its current form, would make something this cool, this crowd-pleasing, and this reverent to the origins of the character on film. I know they just had Deadpool & Wolverine, and supposedly, they’re changing directions with the MCU. But Deadpool & Wolverine was a fluke that won people over despite Marvel’s interference with the writers behind the first two Deadpool movies, and the sea change is still using some of the dumb mistakes Marvel has made recently, like the multiverse – which was lampooned in Deadpool & Wolverine. And through their treatment of Beau DeMayo, they’re proving that they drive away the people who make their best stuff and embrace those who make garbage. This guy makes X-Men ‘97, which their fans loved, and they want nothing to do with him; Joss Whedon made The Avengers, which turned them into a billion-dollar-a-film juggernaut, and Kevin Feige says he’ll never work with the man again; Jon Favreau, who directed the movie that started the MCU, got burnt out after they micromanaged him to death on Iron Man 2. And yet they gave The Fantastic Four: First Steps and Captain America: Brave New World to their Disney+ hacks. Hell, they didn’t even want to bring the Russo Brothers back, despite their making Marvel’s two highest-grossing films; Robert Downey Jr. insisted on that because he’s awesome. So, this will never happen, even if they decide to give Wesley Snipes another Blade movie. But I certainly hope Beau DeMayo finds something great to do soon.

Tell us what you think of Beau DeMayo’s Blade pitch in the comments!