“It’s absolutely clear that there’s still a market for Blade and we could bring it back,” Wesley Snipes told Empire last year. "If we had it we would do it." The people that do have it, of course, are Marvel, and while a new Snipes-starring Blade is no nearer happening, there's a slight update to the saga this morning in the news that Snipes has at least been into the Marvel offices for a chat.
"The project is controlled by Marvel and we did have a really productive and a wonderful meeting and we discussed a number of things," Snipes tells Deadline at Comic-Con. "I don’t know where it’s on their schedule at this point, that hasn’t been decided. I guess it’s still up in the air."
And if Blade 4 doesn't end up happening, Snipes says some other involvement with the Marvel Cinematic Universe "is a possibility too. I’ve always been a fan of these pieces and adaptations and I’d be nice to be a part of the family again. Clearly there’s an audience for it, both domestically and internationally. And I know that only a few guys can do this. Not everybody can do the comic book adaptation thing and make it believable. It is challenging."
Snipes is in San Diego publicising his new NBC TV series The Player, an action drama set in Las Vegas. He plays the amoral Mr. Johnson, a point man for the mysterious billionaires running America's gambling capital, who employs ex-CIA man Alex Kane (Philip Winchester) as muscle.
"I think the concept is pretty interesting," says Snipes, "the idea that there are a group of super-wealthy individuals set up around the world who create a system to predict crime and then also establish a virtual gambling house for their amusement. They bet and gamble on the outcome of these criminal activities. I think that’s a heck of a concept, so it lends itself to a lot of possibilities and I hope that we’ll have some really dynamic acting and great plot twists within the story as well as some awesome action. That’s the name of the game . We want to bring some of our film level, film quality action, to the series."
The Player is currently in pre-production. We'll next see Snipes in Spike Lee's Chiraq, with John Cusack, Samuel L. Jackson and Jeremy Piven. That one is currently filming and should be out next year.