Blade – AKA the vampire-slaying member of the fang club so memorably brought to life on screen by Wesley Snipes – has often been the subject of speculation on a potential new movie or TV series, especially with Marvel Studios in such dominant form. But after new rumours sparked this past weekend, the company's boss, Kevin Feige, has sprinkled a little holy water on the idea for now.
The latest flash of rumour about the character came after Underworld star Kate Beckinsale was asked at this weekend's New York Comic-Con about the chances of a crossover with her vamp franchise and the Daywalker. “No. We had that idea," she said. "No… They’re busy. They’re doing something with Blade.”
But Feige, asked about the comment while attending this week's Doctor Strange footage sneak peek, stressed that the company still isn't actively developing a Blade movie or show. “They did ask a long time ago and I think our answer was, ‘No, we’ll do something with Blade at some point.’ That’s still the answer,” Feige said. “We still think he’s a great character. He’s a really fun character. Between the movies, the Netflix shows, the ABC shows there are so many opportunities for the character to pop up as you’re now seeing with Ghost Rider on Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D. that rather than team up with another studio on that character let’s do something on our own. What that is? Where that will be? We’ll see. There is nothing imminent to my knowledge.”
Talking of projects that have been much speculated upon but don't seem to be as imminent as they might be, there has also been a blip on the Black Widow movie radar, thanks to comments made by Scarlett Johansson. Asked by Variety about the possibility that we might still see a solo Natasha Romanoff movie, she remains upbeat. "I would like for it to happen under the right circumstances. I think there’s a lot of opportunity to mine that story line. She’s got a really rich origins story. There’s a lot of places you can go — you can bring it back to Russia. You could explore the Widow program. There’s all kinds of stuff that you could do with it. You could really uncover the identity of who this person is, where she comes from and where she’s part of." Still, there's a clock on it, in as she's not sure about the character's costume requirement... "If I did it, I’d have to do it while I still actually wanted to wear a skin-tight catsuit. I don’t know how much longer that’s going to be."
The take away from all this? Don't hold your breath for either to be in Marvel's immediate future, but hopefully one day...