What Went Wrong - Blade: Trinity
By Shalimar Sahota
April 3, 2013
BoxOfficeProphets.com
Many would cite Bryan Singer’s X-Men as the true success story, but back in 1998 Stephen Norrington’s Blade was released by New Line Cinema and was one of the few comic book adaptations that really took it seriously and got it right. David S. Goyer scripted the first two films and along with writing Blade: Trinity, he also directed and produced it. “It was my producers Lynn Harris and Peter Frankfurt that suggested I direct this,” said Goyer. “There aren’t many good sequels and there are even less good third films. So it’s really important that you keep shaking things up, that you do something different.”
Goyer’s original idea for the third film was to place Blade 50 years in the future with the world now run by vampires. “An immortal, [Blade] doesn’t really age,” said Goyer. “The vampires don’t either. And I was going to set it in a world where the vampires had won completely and it was much more like a Mad Max world and the humans were resistance fighters.” This would have been as dark and as different as the franchise could possibly get; however, he decided not to go with this, saying “it might as well have been Planet of the Apes or something. So I decided to pull back the reins a little.” In my opinion (and I’m sure I’m not alone here), Goyer should have gone with his original idea.
Instead, Blade: Trinity begins with a small group of vampires flying into the Syrian Desert. Led by Danica Talos (Parker Posey), they walk into a tomb where they awaken Dracula (Dominic Purcell), lovingly referred to as Drake throughout the film. Danica informs Dracula that they need his help to eliminate the Daywalker, Blade (Wesley Snipes). Blade himself is still killing vampires with the help of Whistler (Kris Kristofferson). With the news that Dracula is in the city, Blade ends up getting a little help from a group of vampire slayers known as the Nightstalkers, led by Hannibal King (Ryan Reynolds) and Abigail Whistler (Jessica Biel).
During the shoot, many noted how Snipes would remain in character. This is something that he also did during the previous two films. Even during the release of the first film Snipes did press interviews as Blade because the voice, look and movements are “all stuff very different from Wesley.” During an interview with SuperHeroHype, his co-star Jessica Biel described how Snipes was “very intimidating,” saying, “I don't know if I said more than ten words to the guy,” while Ryan Reynolds said how Snipes was essentially Blade on set.
In January 2004, just after shooting had wrapped, Snipes wrote a letter to the then head of New Line Cinema, Bob Shaye, to complain about how he was treated on the film, notably that his character was sidelined to make way for “two new ‘younger’ characters,” referring to Reynolds and Biel. “There has always been a little bit of drama on the Blade sets,” Goyer responded. “They are all edgy characters, they have a certain amount of darkness in them… That is why we cast Wesley in the lead… It became clear to me that Wesley is a very Method actor. When he is doing a Blade movie he is Blade and he acts like Blade.” Snipes probably took his ‘Method’ to extreme levels, but even so Goyer’s response suggested that he didn’t want to escalate the situation.
In November 2004 it emerged that Snipes was not doing any promotional press for Blade: Trinity, instead flying off to Bulgaria to go shoot another film. He didn’t even record a commentary track for the DVD release with his director or fellow stars.
Blade: Trinity had a production budget of $65 million. It opened at the US box office on December 8, 2004. Whereas the previous two films in the franchise reached the top spot upon opening, Blade: Trinity landed at #2 with an opening weekend take of $16 million, the lowest of the franchise (at #1 was another opener, Oceans Twelve). As a comparison, Blade opened to $17 million back in 1998, while Blade II peaked with an opening of $32.5 million in 2002. Blade: Trinity finished up with just $52.4 million at the US box office. Overseas it earned $76.4 million. A combined worldwide total of $128 million was okay, but less than what the previous films earned.
The first two films had mixed reviews but with Blade: Trinity, many critics were not best pleased this time around, clearly singling it out as the weakest of the trilogy. A few also noted how the film was a glorified advert for Apple iTunes, with Biel’s character seen using the service more than once.
Blade: Trinity does have a decent opening and as usual Blade makes a grand entrance. Goyer cited how he wanted to drag Blade more into the real world. This explains why we see him being discussed on TV, making the front page of some Weekly World Bulletin, as well as getting arrested! It’s quite amusing seeing Danica walk into a police station and tell Blade, “I am such a fan. I like your tattoos.” But after that the film just goes downhill. It’s quite ridiculous seeing Blade, Hannibal and Abigail actually escape from a police station, despite being surrounded by police cars upon exiting the building and not a single car decides to give chase!
Introducing the Nightstalkers allows the film to bear some resemblance to the world of the comics. Seeing Hannibal King pass Blade issue #1 of Marvel’s The Tomb of Dracula: Lord of Vampires is a great touch (given that it’s the comic book series in which Blade was introduced). But why introduce a whole bunch of characters when you’re going to kill most of them off anyway? Out of the five Nightstalkers, three are killed. The vampire villains are no better and come across as rejects from an early draft. Danica Talos, Asher Talos (Callum Keith Rennie) and Jarko Grimwood (Triple H) look like they belong in a cartoon rather than an R-rated action film. Following their botched attempt at claiming Blade at the police station, Jarko jokingly pulls an arrow out from his eye while Danica is so upset that she kicks a fellow vampire in the head.
Dominic Purcell delivers a un-Dracula-like portrayal of Dracula/Drake. The post-produced bass-heavy voice works but apart from that, he’s just weird. Ashamed of what vampires have become, he calls them shadows of their former selves. He has no real reason to help Danica with killing the Daywalker. He could just kill her and her group for waking him up and leave them all behind. But he helps them anyway. I can’t really fathom why; probably out of boredom? Basically, the big bad doesn’t serve much of a purpose since he doesn’t even want to be there in the first place, nor does he have any kind of grand scheme himself. Also, during their first encounter, why the hell is Dracula running away from Blade? I mean, this is supposed to be Dracula, the strongest vampire there is.
In January 2005 an insider involved on the film revealed that Snipes made death threats against Goyer, again because of the issue regarding his character being minimized to make way for Reynolds and Biel. A few months later in April, it was reported that Snipes was suing New Line Cinema for failing to pay him his full salary for his role in the film and (given that he was also credited as a producer) failing to allow him to approve the director. Snipes did have a point about his role, though. You have a Blade film where Blade isn’t even in it that much. The film shows no interest in delving further into the character, instead leaving him as a one-dimensional ass-kicking machine.
In November 2012 an interview with Patton Oswalt by A.V. Club (whose screen time in the film as Hedges, a member of the Nightstalkers, amounts to no more than four minutes), had him reveal that Snipes refused to speak to Goyer and even tried to strangle him. “It was a very troubled production,” said Oswalt. “Wesley was just fucking crazy in a hilarious way. He wouldn’t come out of his trailer, and he would smoke weed all day.” He also revealed how Snipes tried to get Goyer to leave the film. “Wesley sat down with David and was like, ‘I think you need to quit. You’re detrimental to this movie.’ And David was like, ‘Why don’t you quit? We’ve got all your close-ups, and we could shoot the rest with your stand-in.’ And that freaked Wesley out so much that, for the rest of the production, he would only communicate with the director through Post-it notes. And he would sign each Post-it note ‘From Blade.’” If this was the ‘Method’ Goyer was referring to then it probably wouldn’t have worked having Blade leave Post-it-notes for other characters.
As a fan of the previous two installments, I viewed Blade: Trinity on its opening day. Following on from what Stephen Norrington and Guillermo del Toro did, I was really looking forward to it. Goyer’s film felt like a major letdown. The title character is sidelined for sidekicks and the main villain is a motiveless Dracula who also barely features during the first half. The thought of Blade squaring off against Dracula sounded awesome, but even their final duel fails to excite.
It was no secret that a Nightstalkers spin-off was planned, but that’s not going to happen. From talking to JoBlo, Biel said of the potential spin-off, “I actually thought that maybe we would do an adaptation of that, but I just don't think that Blade: Trinity did so well. It just didn't do as well as everyone would have hoped, so no one was interested in rethinking those characters.” While there was a short-lived TV series in 2006, it lasted just one season. All signs indicated that the franchise was dead, making it highly unlikely that we’ll see a fourth film.
Snipes’ ego certainly caused problems to the point where some may think twice about working with him again. He is now 50 years old, but had admitted back in 2010 to wanting to play the title role in a fourth Blade film. In an interview with IGN earlier in the year about the upcoming Man of Steel, Goyer was also asked about the possibility of returning to Blade. His response was, “I don’t know. I’ve done so much Blade. At a certain point you’re just like, ‘How many Blade stories can I tell?’ We were scraping the bottom of the barrel even in the first iteration. It was a little hard. Probably not, but you never know.”
Ultimately Goyer’s script for Blade: Trinity made little attempt to top what came before. He really should have gone with his original idea. Unfortunately if he tried to do that storyline now it would suffer comparisons with the similarly themed Daybreakers. Also, with Marvel having now merged with Disney… well… don’t expect a Blade ride at the House of Mouse anytime soon.