1998’s Blade screenwriter David S. Goyer discussed director David Fincher‘s involvement in the Marvel Comics movie during its early stages.
Goyer appeared on the Happy Sad Confused podcast and spoke about his career breakthrough as the screenwriter for Wesley Snipes‘ Blade at New Line Cinema. Particularly interesting was how Fincher, the master filmmaker behind such classics as Se7en and Fight Club, helped flesh out the project.
“I developed a draft with Fincher before he had done Se7en. I think he had done Alien 3, and maybe he was developing Se7en. I developed a draft with him,” Goyer recalled (via JoBlo). “I remember going to our producers’ office, and Fincher had this…there was this giant conference table. Fincher laid out 40 to 50 books of photography and art with post-it notes inside them. He said, ‘This is the movie.’ [Fincher] took us on a two-hour tour around the table of the aesthetics of this scene, that character. It was such a fully fleshed-out visual pitch. There’s no question that a lot of that…I had never seen something like that before. A lot of that thinking infused my further revisions.”
Blade’s impact on the Marvel Cinematic Universe
While Fincher contributed to the serious gothic nature of Blade, the director ultimately decided not to direct the Marvel movie and opted instead to helm his breakout movie Se7en in 1995. Goyer completed his script in 1996 as Snipes signed on to play the Daywalker with Stephen Norrington in the director’s chair. Released in the summer of 1998, Blade proved popular with audiences, grossing $131 million worldwide and spawning two sequels starring Snipes. Additionally, the movie helped to create legitimacy for the Marvel brand on the big screen as the adaptions of Fox’s X-Men and Sony’s Spider-Man followed shortly thereafter.
Blade will be back on the big screen as part of the Marvel Cinematic Universe with Oscar-winning actor Mahershala Ali in the title role. Lovecraft Country director Yann Demange will direct the reboot from a screenplay by Michael Starrbury and True Detective creator Nic Pizzolatto. Blade is scheduled for release on February 14, 2025.
