Is Wesley Snipes Returning For BLADE (4)?

Sources close to actor and action hero Wesley Snipes are publicly announcing the prospects of his return to the role of Blade, according to a small mention in a column over at the New York Daily News. The news comes in light of Snipes’s latest appearance in director Patrick Hughes’s new film, The Expendables 3, marking Snipes‘s return to the big screen following his release from a three-year prison sentence for tax evasion.

Visually upgraded from its 1973 comic book likeness by author Marv Wolfman and illustrator Gene Colan, the Blade franchise took off in 1998 under director Stephen Norrington with Snipes starring in the title role, a modern day dhampir (a semi-human with vampire genes) waging a vengeful age-old one-man war against vampires. Snipes produced all three films with Guillermo del Toro sitting in for the 2002 sequel, Blade 2, while franchise screenwriter David S. Goyer sat in for the third, Blade: Trinity (2004), which suffered more critically and controversially despite the trilogy’s overall commercial success.

Following the character’s short stint in a live-action TV and seperate animated series, former editor-in-chief at Marvel, Joe Quesada announced Blade‘s return of rights to the company back in 2011, which ultimately put Marvel in the position to reimagine the character in a way they see fit. However, there are not yet any other details regarding this latest update, so the only question right now is if whether or not Snipes’s Comic-Con hopes will be a reality, or if Marvel will take the reboot approach with a new actor?

Time will tell as the wheels continue spinning, so stay tuned for more info!