Trivia: This film, along with 2000's "X-Men" and 2002's "Spider-Man," are often cited as the three movies that helped revive the comic-book-movie genre after several poorly-received 90's movies like "Batman and Robin" and "Steel" had effectively killed it for a few years.
Trivia: Blade's tattoos were designed by director Stephen Norrington.
Trivia: The film came about in-part due to the fact Wesley Snipes wanted to star in a Marvel superhero movie, but his dream project - "Black Panther" - got stuck in development Hell. Eventually, Snipes became intrigued by the Blade character, and helped get the film made. A "Black Panther" film was eventually made (without Snipes), and released exactly twenty years after "Blade" hit screens.
Trivia: The visual effects in the subway scene were cutting edge at the time, and the visual effects artist working on the sequence had to match the digitally-created trains to the film frame-by-frame due to the camera movement and jitter. You can briefly see people inside of the trains as they pass by, which were just still images of people standing, since they went by so quick you could barely see them. One final amusing note about the scene: In the making of, the digital effects artist mentions that one day, he hoped the software would exist so that motion and camera movement could be digitally tracked so digital elements wouldn't need to be matched in frame-by-frame. This idea (motion tracking) is now - 20 years later - such a common effect technique that it's available in most animation software (including many free and/or cheap programs) as a very basic feature.
Trivia: Blade's somewhat infamous one-liner "Some mother****ers are always trying to ice-skate uphill" was something that star Wesley Snipes once casually said in conversation while trying to describe the character of Deacon Frost. Director Stephen Norrington and writer David S. Goyer thought it was such a bizarrely unique expression, they vowed to work it into the script somehow.
Trivia: Donal Logue, who plays Quinn, fell and dislocated his jaw during the filming of the hospital scene, where his severely-burned character attacks Karen. He had to be rushed to a real hospital while still in full burn makeup, which caused a panic among the staff, as they thought he had really been severely burned over his entire body.
Trivia: At Deacon's place, the vampires are watching Mortal Kombat, also made by New Line Cinema.
Trivia: The character of Whistler was created by writer David S. Goyer for this film, but first debuted in the Spider-Man animated series TV show.
Trivia: Whistler was named Abraham as reference to Abraham Van Helsing, the vampire slayer in Dracula's novel.
Trivia: Mark Wahlberg, Skeet Ulrich and Bruce Payne were considered for the role of Deacon Frost.
Trivia: Jet Li rejected the role of Deacon Frost because he was involved in Lethal Weapon 4.
Trivia: Denzel Washington and Laurence Fishburne were considered for the main role.
Chosen answer: It would seem Deacon has gathered a lot of strength around himself, in followers of "young" vampires like himself. After he kills Gitano he just abducts all the vampire elders, showing his followers are a lot stronger than the elders are. So they probably couldn't have killed him even if they wanted to, not unless they want to unleash a war. They thought his pursuit of the vampire god was totally pointless, so they let him waste his time and were probably trying to find a way to get rid of him.
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