News

David Fincher helped develop original Blade movie

Blade ended up being directed by Stephen Norrington.

David Fincher developed Blade with screenwriter David S. Goyer in the ’90s.

During an appearance on the Happy Sad Confused podcast, the Blade screenwriter revealed he worked with The Social Network director on a movie about the Marvel vampire hunter.

“I developed a draft with Fincher before he had done Se7en,” Goyer said. “I think he had done Alien 3 (his directorial debut) and maybe he was developing Se7en. I developed a draft with him.”

While he couldn’t remember the specific plot points that Fincher suggested, Goyer recalled the filmmaker’s extensive visual pitch.

“I remember going to our producer’s office… There was this giant conference table. Fincher laid out 40, 50 books of photography and art with post-it notes in them. He said, ‘This is the movie,'” the Batman Begins scribe remembered.

“(Fincher) took us on a two-hour tour around the table of the aesthetics of this scene, that scene, that character… It was such a fully fleshed out visual pitch… I had never seen something like that before. A lot of that thinking then infused my further revisions.”

Blade, starring Wesley Snipes as the titular character, was ultimately directed by Stephen Norrington and released in 1998. During the mid-to-late 1990s, Fincher premiered Se7en, The Game and Fight Club.

Goyer wrote all three instalments in the Blade trilogy and even directed the final chapter. However, he admitted making Blade: Trinity was the “worst experience of my professional career” and he became “very depressed” afterwards.

Marvel bosses are planning to introduce Blade into the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) in an upcoming reboot starring Mahershala Ali.

© Cover Media