Icons Unearthed Creator Points To Blade As Key To Unlocking The MCU

When discussing Icons Unearthed: Marvel, director Brian Volk-Weiss revealed the surprising movie he credits with establishing the potential of the MCU: Blade. Icons Unearthed: Marvel is the fourth season of The Nacelle Company and Vice TV’s hit docuseries diving deep into popular topics; previous installments explored Star Wars, The Simpsons, and the Fast & Furious franchise. Now turning its lens on Marvel and the MCU, Icons Unearthed: Marvel starts with the company’s inception and continues up to the release of the first Ant-Man film.

Released in 1998, the first Blade movie catapulted Wesley Snipes into superstardom and spawned two sequels: Blade II (2002), and Blade: Trinity (2004), the latter of which was poorly-received but features strong performances by Snipes and a pre-Deadpool Ryan Reynolds, among others. Although Blade was far from the first well-received superhero film, Brian Volk-Weiss credited the movie with establishing guideposts of how to make a modern superhero movie. Here’s what he had to say in an interview with Screen Rant:

One of the huge things is the importance of Blade to everything that happened with the MCU. First of all – and it’s painful for me to say this, but it’s true – even more so than Batman ’89, Blade showed how to make a modern superhero film.

It figured out, “How do you take this crazy wardrobe – that’s straps and strings – that works in a comic book but would never work in reality, and how do you fix that? How do you take these kind of cheesy lines and make them sound cool? How do you take the thought bubbles and make a movie without thought bubbles were nobody wants to hear them thinking?” They figured it out. That’s the first thing Blade did.

The other thing Blade did, is it made about $200 million all-in, minimum. It actually may have made $250 to $300 with all the ancillary and cable.

Related: The MCU Blade Reboot: Cast, Release Date & Everything We Know

Will Mahershala Ali’s Blade Become The Next Key To The MCU?

Although the first Wesley Snipes Blade movie may have laid the foundation for the eventual rise of the MCU, the Marvel Cinematic Universe has thus far left the beloved character out of its proceedings. The Mahershala Ali-led Blade film is slated for release in 2024, but it will likely be an incredibly difficult task to assimilate the character into over fifteen years’ worth of crossovers and relationship-building between the other MCU heroes. The MCU Blade will certainly have an impact when he is introduced next year, but it will likely take even longer before the character can organically be at the heart of the Cinematic Universe. This is especially true given that the MCU seems to be skewing around Jonathan Majors’ Kang variants, at least until Avengers: The Kang Dynasty.

Brian Volk-Weiss also spoke about Blade II being especially important to the DNA of the MCU because it introduced humor; something that has not at all been hinted at with Mahershala Ali’s take on the character. Although Ali has thus far only been heard and not seen in a Marvel film (thanks to an Eternals post-credit scene), the implication in his brief ‘appearance’ was that his Blade would have a sharper edge than many other quippy MCU heroes. While it’s much too early to tell anything for certain, there’s a chance his role will be that of a stoic outsider and foil rather than the center of attention (at least outside of his solo Blade film).

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