Blade (franchise)

Blade
The Blade Trilogy DVD box set
Directed by	Stephen Norrington (Blade) Guillermo del Toro (Blade II) David S. Goyer (Trinity)
Written by	David S. Goyer Michael Starrbury
Based on	Blade by Marv Wolfman Gene Colan
Starring	Wesley Snipes
Music by	Mark Isham (Blade) Marco Beltrami (Blade II) Ramin Djawadi The RZA (Trinity)
Distributed by	New Line Cinema
Release date	1998–2006
Country	United States
Language	English
Budget	$164 million[1]
Box office	$417 million[1]

Blade is a superhero film and television franchise based on the Marvel Comics character of the same name, starring Wesley Snipes as Blade in the original trilogy, and Sticky Fingaz in the television series. The original trilogy was directed by Stephen Norrington, Guillermo del Toro and David S. Goyer, the latter of whom also wrote the films and served as a co-writer for the first and last two episodes of the television series. The original films and television series were distributed by New Line Cinema from 1998 to 2006.

The character was created in 1973 for Marvel Comics by writer Marv Wolfman and artist Gene Colan as a supporting character in the 1970s comic The Tomb of Dracula. In the comic, Blade's mother was bitten by a vampire while she was in labor with Blade, rendering him immune to being turned into a vampire; following the release of the 1998 film Blade, the character was retroactively made into a dhampir and redesigned to match his movie counterpart. A reboot within the continuity of the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) is expected to be released on November 7, 2025 as part of Marvel Cinematic Universe: Phase Six, with Mahershala Ali in the title role.^[2]