It's the 20th anniversary of Blade, and we're taking a look at the whole franchise to commemorate the first hero of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, well, almost the first.
Here are seven things you didn't know about Blade.
(Sound) Before Black Panther broke all the records and became a landmark for African-American progress in Hollywood, it was Wesley Snipes' vampire hunting anti-hero Blade who staked his claim as Marvel's first black superhero at the cinema, but the firsts don't stop there.
Besides being the first R-rated Marvel movie, sorry Deadpool, but more on that later, it was also the first Marvel sequel and trilogy, as well as the first superhero movie from screenwriter David S Goyer, who would later develop the Christopher Nolan Batman films, and others.
And the original Blade should have been the first Stan Lee cameo, with him playing a cop in this scene, though it was unfortunately cut for some reason.
But as close as I can tell, Blade does have the great honor of featuring the very first superhero landing on film. Lock up your daughters, boys and girls, the dark knight returns.
(Sound) Before becoming a household name with the hit movies, the Blade character was far from being on the super hero A list. In fact, Wesley Snipes hadn't even heard about Blade until his initial attempts to make a Black Panther movie fell through.
Boom, bonus Black Panther thing.
Wesley cut his hand on his own sword on Blade II, Jessica Biel almost screwed up her back and Ryan Reynolds took a few real lumps in Blade Trinity just to name a few.
But the worst had to be Dona Logue when he dislocated his jaw filming this scene.
Donal's jaw was so far out of socket, he couldn't even talk.
Unfortunately, the scene was shot in an abandoned hospital, so the half naked actor was rushed to a real Where he scared the living (Bleep) out of everyone who thought he was an actual vampire burn victim, which I'm sure was very flattering for the makeup guy, unfortunate for literally everyone else.
(Sound) Well besides life and limb, there was also a fair amount of property that was destroyed, notably a $300,000 camera when Jessica Biel shot an arrow into it.
Besides four hours of training every day, Biel had an additional hour of archery over the course of seven months, so when she was directed to aim for the camera, it should come as no surprise that she got a bulls-eye even at 50 feet away.
(Sound) Before his record breaking success with Deadpool, no the other Deadpool, Ryan Reynolds' first attempted super hero success was Hannibal King in Blade Trinity.
And if you're thinking he should have just stuck to playing Deadpool and saved us all some grief, well, that was actually kind of the plan.
Much like Blade, the Hannibal King character was far from a fan favorite, so when it came time to start developing his character, he based Hannibal on the very popular character Deadpool.
According to reports from Patton Oswalt, Wesley would only come out of his trailer for close-ups, left much of the filming to his stunt double.
He also accused David S Goyer of being racist for hiring an all white cast, a point Snipes cited later when he sued the production for $5 million.
You're kids.
You're not ready to role with this.
I mean look at the way you're dressed. This scene, where he gives the night stalkers a real talking to, was at Snipe's insistence so he could air a few grievances.
He also didn't like the truck he was rescued in so that was swapped out for the next scene.
Also, this part where he leaves Ryan and Jessica's characters after being rescued was because he hated doing scenes with Reynolds whose ad libbed insults were not helping matters. He hates me, doesn't he? Yeah.
By the end of the production, Wesley would only respond to Blade, and his only communication to the director was through Post-It notes.
So I guess there are worse problems a movie can have than vampire pomeranians. Like what?
Like me.
The first Blade movie had an ending where Deacon Frost actually turns into a CGI blood god tornado that test audiences hated so much, they went back and re-shot this sword fight.
Originally the Blood God was supposed to win, turning the world into vampires, and the sequels were supposed to be a mixture of I Am Legend and Mad Max.
I, for one, am furious that didn't happen.
There was also an alternate Blade Trinity ending that can be seen on the uncut version where Blade jumps off the autopsy table and kicks some lab coat ass, though they did resort to CGI to actually open his eyes, and the rest was a stunt double since Wesley refused to open his eyes. Also, just a thought, but you might want to consider blinking once in a while.
There was also an ending with a werewolf that was shot using just Reynolds and Biel, probably in an attempt to do a Blade sequel with actors who took simple direction like, please open your eyes.