Wesley Snipes Thought It Was Over For His Blade. Then Ryan Reynolds Called

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Spoiler alert for Deadpool & Wolverine.

The Marvel Cinematic Universe is always expanding in theaters and streaming for those with a Disney+ subscription, but certain projects stand out as fan favorites. Case in point: Deadpool & Wolverine, which has gone great in theaters and honored 20th Century Fox for those who spent years watching the Marvel movies in order. The movie featured a ton of shocking cameos, including Wesley Snipes' return as Blade. He thought he was done with the character, until he got a call from Ryan Reynolds.

The cast list of Deadpool 3 was filled with surprise cameos, which made for a delightful moviegoing experience. That includes the return of Jennifer Garner's Elektra, Channing Tatum's debut as Gambit, as well as Dafne Keen's X-23 and Wesley Snipes' Blade. The latter spoke to EW about his return as vampiric hero about how surprised he was to finally play that role again. He offered some background, saying:

Over the years, we've had very interesting conversations, some of them very substantive and some of them not. So I kind of resided that I was moving on from them, which is okay. I did three of them, and I thought they turned out pretty good. Not so bad... So we move on to other things, and bigger and better things, as well.

Points were made. Leading a superhero trilogy is quite the accomplishment, especially when you acknowledge that the Blade movies were produced prior to shared universes like the MCU and DCU factored into studios' plans. So Snipes could have left that character behind knowing he definitely crushed the job at hand.

The likelihood of Snipes reprising his signature role felt even more slim once actor Mahershal Ali was cast as the MCU's Blade. Snipes has maintained he's the real Blade, and he even got to say as much during the runtime of Deadpool & Wolverine. During that same interview, he explained what it was like getting the call from Ryan Reynolds about the MCU threequel, offering:

I did not think it was possible. I didn't think we would be able to pull it off. I didn't think that Marvel was into it, Disney was into it — also because they had Mahershala cast for the next upcoming version of it. I thought it didn't make sense to me, but [when] you get a call from Ryan Reynolds out of the blue after 20 years, you go, 'Okay, I got to take this call. Let's see what this is about.' He told me the idea... They said 'yes' and 'it's a go.' 'If you're in, we're in.' Here we are."

Snipes once again crushed it as Blade, which was a nostalgic treat for fans of his trilogy. Luckily the third installment Blade: Trilogy included Ryan Reynolds, which likely helped to make this deal for his return happen.

In many ways Shawn Levy's acclaimed threequel felt like it was paying respect to all the work that came at 20th Century Fox prior to Disney's acquisition of the studio and its properties. Aside from all the cameos, Deadpool & Wolverine's credits also included BTS footage from projects like Blade, X-Men, Daredevil, and more.

Deadpool & Wolverine is in theaters now. Be sure to check out the 2025 movie release dates.