Blade, now a wanted man by the FBI, must join forces with the Nightstalkers to face his most challenging enemy yet: Dracula.
By now “Blade” had become somewhat of a phenomenon and excitement for a third film was high.
Unfortunately this production was marred by trouble behind the scenes, due to studio interference Wesley Snipes apparently had some sort of mental breakdown. He refused to speak to David S. Goyer and often would not come out of his trailer, he would only respond to the name ‘Blade’ and if he communicated with anyone, it would be via post-it notes. Ryan Reynolds stated that Snipes would ignore the entire cast.
Both Wesley Snipes and Kris Kristofferson, who had become really good friends after working on the two previous Blade-installments, were reportedly seriously unhappy with this movie and with David S. Goyer’s script decisions. They felt that too many new characters were added to the universe, and that ‘Blade’ did not need any sidekicks besides Whistler.
I was sad not to see Guillermo del Toro return as director, he passed on the film when “Hellboy” was greenlighted and he often stated that was his dream project. We saw “Blade” writer David S. Goyer take on both writing and directing duties this time and as great a writer as he is, I don’t think he’s a great director and he may have been overwhelmed with this project due to a lack of experience.
Ultimately this film bombed, it could have been so much better and should have been. It’s not that it’s unwatchable but it;s just a frustrating watch and the studio should not have interfered and when they did it should have been to sort out the problems on the production, mot making things worse. Suh a shame that a promising franchise just fizzled out.
“Blade Trinity” is evidence of the saying “too many cooks spoil the broth”.
Miscellaneous facts about the film:
Jessica Biel inadvertently destroyed a camera, costing more than $300,000, when she fired an arrow directly into the camera’s lens. She was directed to “aim for the camera”, which had a Plexiglas shield in front of it to protect it, except for a small opening in front of the lens. Biel had perfected her archery skills while training for this role to such a degree that when she fired the arrow – at a distance of approximately 50 feet – at the camera, as she was directed, it went directly through the lens and into the camera itself, destroying it. The footage of the incident is included in the DVD extras.
Even though it’s the third movie in the Blade series, this was the first movie to have the Marvel Studios logo at the beginning of the movie (Blade is a Marvel comics superhero).
After this film, the live action film rights went back to Marvel Studios.
Ryan Reynolds gained 25 pounds of muscle for his role as Hannibal King.
An early idea by David S. Goyer for the film was to be set many years after the events of Blade II (2002), where vampires finally had achieved world domination and enslaved all humans, with Blade being the last hope for humanity. Blade’s slower aging could be explained by his vampire blood. The storyline was deemed too dark and was later dropped.
Dominic Purcell (Drake) did all of his stunts in the sword fight sequence against Blade.
Hannibal King’s line to Blade, “You might wanna try blinking”, was improvised.
One of the television commercials for the film was recalled after one day of airing because it accidentally credited Jessica Biel as Jessica Alba.
Stephen Norrington had at one point considered returning to direct this film. But he changed his mind after reading the script which he didn’t like.
Paul Levesque (aka professional wrestler Triple H) impressed the producers with his work ethic and camera presence. New Line insisted that extra lines be written in the script to make his role bigger.
Wesley Snipes has less than a hundred sentences in this movie, including one-word sentences (which make up a majority of Blade’s lines) and even onomatopoeic sentences, like Blade’s “goochie goo” to the baby he saves.
The film crew was forced to be selective in their shots for various green-screen segments because neighboring stages were being used for the filming of I, Robot (2004) and The Chronicles of Riddick (2004) and those sets would sometimes appear within the frames (and edited out later).
EASTER EGG: On the special features disc, click up and when the vampire hieroglyphics is highlighted click it to access a hidden movie.
There was much on set drama between Wesley Snipes and director David S. Goyer in regards to certain decisions made with the film. This is evident in the making of featurettes as Wesley Snipes has little to no participation.
An early idea of David S. Goyer was to include not only Hannibal King, but a female character called Rachel Van Helsing from the Tomb of Dracula comics, but then he heard about the movie Van Helsing (2004) and decided against it. He ended up creating the character of Abigail Whistler, Whistler’s daughter, in her place.
In the comics, Hannibal King was a vampire. He was turned by the Blade (1998)’s antagonist Deacon Frost.
The car Blade drives in all three movies is a 1968 Dodge Charger modified with UV lights behind the front grille as well as numerous switches inside the car. After the movie the car was purchased by a man in Vancouver who kept the car virtually the same except for adding a 440 under the hood.
The opening scene with the helicopters in the Syrian desert was originally scripted to be in Iraq. However, consultants pointed out that, at the time, unmarked helicopters would have either been shot down by the U.S. military or shot at by Iraqi insurgents. Goyer changed the scene to Syria.
After the car crash that ends the opening chase scene, one of the benches at the bus stop in the background displays a poster with the word “esperanto” on it. Abraham Whistler (Kris Kristofferson) and the newspaper vendor are speaking in Esperanto, with English subtitles provided. The scene on and in the police headquarters is in both English and Esperanto. The movie watched by Hannibal King when he is recovering from his wounds on the boat is Incubus (1966) with William Shatner, which was shot in Esperanto. The Esperanto League for North America was contacted and asked to provide the necessary translations for the movie.
The vampire “final Solution” in this film originally came from an idea in Blade (1998), the first film in the trilogy. In a deleted scene Deacon Frost shows Karen Jensen a prototype of harvesting human bodies. This can be found on the “Blade” DVD.
The old barge that the Nightstalkers use as their lair, was originally a floating McDonald’s Restaurant built for Expo ’86, held in Vancouver.
When Hannibal King is telling Blade about the return of Dracula, he shows Blade a copy of Tomb of Dracula #55. Marvel’s “Tomb of Dracula” comic was the early-1970s title which included the first appearances of Blade (#10) and Hannibal King (#25), both written by Marv Wolfman.
Blade only kills 42 vampires, making this his lowest of the series.
Having just been saved by the Nightstalkers, Blade ridicules his rescuers as “rookies” and asks them if they think of the vampire hunt as a “sitcom”. At that moment, the camera cuts to Patton Oswalt, who had been a cast member of the sitcom The King of Queens (1998) for several years. In addition, Ryan Reynolds was one of the stars of Two Guys, a Girl and a Pizza Place (1998) and Jessica Biel played one of the daughters in 7th Heaven (1996).
The girl in the vampire gift shop is wearing a tank top featuring Phil Campbell of Motorhead, the band that recorded Paul Levesque’s (aka “Triple H”, who plays Jarko Grimwood) theme music for the WWE.
According to David S. Goyer on the commentary, he says that Christopher Heyerdahl offered to speak with a Norwegian accent. Goyer consented but stipulated that Heyerdahl maintain the accent throughout production. Heyerdahl was said to be convincing enough, that Snipes even believed Heyerdahl was Norwegian. Coincidentally, Heyerdahl would later play “The Swede” on Hell on Wheels with a Norwegian accent.
This is the only film in the series where Blade does not get a massive infusion of fresh blood before fighting his last battle.
The sets used as the vampire’s high-rise lair are still in use in the sci-fi TV show Stargate: Atlantis (2004).
Colin Farrell was offered the role of Hannibal King, but turned it down.
Erica Cerra portrayed the young store clerk who gets bitten by Drake. In the series The L Word (2004), she portrayed a practicing Vampire by the name of Uta Refson.
The name of the talk-show host, “Bentley Tittle”, is a reference to horror writer Bentley Little.
The Security Team members in the Vampire’s lair are all wearing black Vforce Armor paintball masks with smoke lenses, (to obscure the eyes from the camera,) and without the sun visor section.
The Nightstalkers call their anti-vampire bioweapon “Daystar”. Daystar was also the name of the production company behind Incubus (1966), which is briefly shown during the film.
German director Oliver Hirschbiegel was once under consideration for the job of directing the film, but could not due to a conflict with another film. He directed Downfall (2004) instead.
Series Trademark: [sunglasses] The sunglasses worn by Abigail Whistler (Jessica Biel) are Oakley Half-wires. The brand made many appearances in the trilogy, mostly in Blade II (2002). This has been attributed to Wesley Snipes’ love of the brand. Oakley sunglasses also make regular appearances in the Blade: The Series (2006).
This marks David S. Goyer’s directorial debut for a major motion picture.
While Abby is preparing her playlist for the final battle, the song Atom Bomb by Fluke is checked. The song is playing at that moment.
At 113 minutes – this is the shortest Blade movie.
The PDA used at the beginning of the movie is a PalmOne Tungsten T3.
A deleted alternate ending had Abigail and Hannibal fighting a werewolf/vampire hybrid in a casino, possibly setting up for a Nightstalkers spin-off feature film.
When Blade and Whistler return to find Sommerfield dead, the phrase “Immortality will come to such as are fit for it” is painted in blood on the shower curtain. This is a quote by Ralph Waldo Emerson. The full quote reads: “Immortality will come to such as are fit for it; and he who would be a great soul in the future must be a great soul now.”
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