Blade: Trinity: why was the Nightstalkers spinoff cut?

Blade: Trinity (2004), starring Wesley Snipes, Jessica Biel and Ryan Reynolds, is one of the most disliked films of the Blade trilogy. Some would say it's the most disliked. I personally think it isn't all that bad. Yes, it's pretty cringey, but it's not terrible.

This breakdown covers the Marvel Comics roots, the hidden details, the troubled production and the ending explained, plus the original ending and the alternate ending that teased a Nightstalkers spinoff.

Blade: Trinity opens with Marvel's logo and Dracula's tomb in Syria

Right away, Blade: Trinity makes history as the first film in the Blade franchise to feature the Marvel page flipping animation at the start, acknowledging Blade's Marvel Comics roots. The film then opens with the House of Talos arriving by helicopter in the Syrian desert to visit the tomb of Dracula. That's ironic, because Blade made his first appearance in Marvel's Tomb of Dracula #10 in 1973, where he went head to head with Dracula himself.

The team that descends into the tomb includes Danica Talos, played by Parker Posey, her brother Asher Talos, Jarko Grimwood, played by the wrestler Triple H, and a vampire named Wolfe, played by Paul Anthony. Originally the script put Dracula's tomb in Iraq, but the location was changed to Syria because of the very small likelihood of those helicopters landing without first being shot down by Iraqi or American antiaircraft missiles at the time.

Inside the tomb are inscriptions in ancient cuneiform, a language used by the Sumerians and one of the earliest forms of written language humanity knows of. Later we learn that Dracula, known as Drake in this film, was born somewhere around the fifth or fourth millennium BCE, making him around 6,000 to 7,000 years old. He bites the head off Wolfe before revealing his monster form to Danica and her group.

Blade kills a human familiar and Danica Talos's footage gets him framed by the news

The film then moves to the streets of a vague city it never names. I'm pretty sure we're supposed to assume it's something like New York, but we do know the film was shot primarily in Vancouver, British Columbia. Blade starts this mediocre movie off with a bang by blowing up some C4 at a vampire hideout, then uses the Heckler and Koch USP Match pistols we saw in Blade II.

He also pulls out a new chain saber knife that Whistler built for him, which lets him throw and retract the blade with ease. When the remaining vampires try to escape by car, they forget that Blade still drives the same modded 1968 Dodge Charger that appears in all three Blade films, so they don't get far.

Unfortunately, Blade accidentally kills a human familiar working with the vampires. The news frames him as a maniac murderer on the loose, mostly because Danica was nearby filming the whole thing on a large camera before putting it on her old iMac. There's plenty of Apple product placement in this film. Abigail later uses iTunes to make a vampire killing playlist on her laptop, and nearly all the computers in the Nightstalkers' lair are iMacs.

Whistler warns Blade of consequences brewing at the FBI

Back at headquarters, Blade thanks Whistler for the knife, and Whistler chastises him for killing a human and warns of consequences. Those consequences are brewing at the FBI regional headquarters, where Blade's wanted flyer lists his date and place of birth as unknown. As an FBI agent follows a news story on Blade's clash with police, we learn Blade killed at least three other people while escaping.

At the Talos compound, Danica, Jarko and a new female vampire observe Drake feeding on infrared monitors, where his victim shows considerably less body heat. Drake spends most of his time looking like actor Dominic Purcell, which saves the effort of applying the monster costume every time. Danica tells Drake about the only other daywalker on the planet, and he agrees to kill him.

Whistler then picks up a tabloid with the headline "gun toting psychopath captured on film," alongside a photo and FBI drawing of Blade. Another story on the page claims an alligator ate an entire family, not even sparing the dog. Part of me wonders if the tabloids in this universe are owned by vampires, with stories like these used to cover their tracks. Another headline claims the Mafia plans to colonize Mars. Next to them sits a Gothic magazine that was popular at the time. The magazine vendor is a government spy working with the FBI, played by the film's director of photography, Gabriel Beristain.

A talk show host named Bentley, a character apparently named as a nod to horror writer Bentley Little, author of The Revelation, The Summoning and The Haunted, interviews Police Chief Martin Vreede and forensic psychiatrist Edgar Vance, played by John Michael Higgins. As the men bash Blade on TV, Whistler tells him he can't keep fighting alone, because he's no longer fighting just the vampires.

Abigail Whistler was first written as Rachel van Helsing

A gang of vampires led by one named Flick follows a woman and her baby into the subway, calling them a combo meal. The woman is Whistler's secret daughter, Abigail Whistler, played by Jessica Biel, a vampire hunter with high tech gadgets like her father. She uses a fake baby and her UV laser arc bow to finish off the skateboarding vampires.

Abigail later says the bow burns half as hot as the sun. Since the sun burns at around 10,000 degrees Fahrenheit, the bow would be around 5,000 degrees Fahrenheit, or 2,760 degrees Celsius, roughly the temperature of a welding arc. Holding it that close to her exposed skin is extremely dangerous.

When David S. Goyer was writing the script, he originally envisioned Abigail as Rachel van Helsing, who first appeared in 1972's Tomb of Dracula #3 as the great granddaughter of Abraham van Helsing, Dracula's arch nemesis. Because a Van Helsing film starring Hugh Jackman was already in development, Goyer decided against it and made her the daughter of Abraham Whistler instead. That's close to the same thing, since Abraham Whistler was based on Abraham van Helsing.

Whistler's death and Blade's 1,182 kills

Whistler rubs his wedding ring, thinking of the family he's lost to vampires, right before the government comes knocking, as he feared. The agents prove too much, and a fatally wounded Whistler blows up their headquarters with himself inside, largely to keep the government and the vampires embedded in it from getting his sensitive intel.

Under FBI questioning, Blade reveals he's killed a total of 1,182 would be vampire familiars. I find that interesting, because knowing the exact number of humans he's killed shows Blade cares about the human casualties of his war.

Edgar Vance interrupts to ask Blade about his mother and whether they were close. That triggers Blade's anger, which makes sense given how uncomfortably close Blade's mother got to him when they reunited in the first Blade film. Edgar then reveals he's been a familiar for five years, sedates Blade and sends in Danica. She asks whether Blade's tattoos mean anything. He doesn't answer, but it has been revealed in the past that Blade usually gets new tattoos to commemorate a particularly memorable slaying.

Hannibal King's comic book history and the Nightstalkers

Then in comes Ryan Reynolds as Hannibal King to save the day. Hannibal debuted in Tomb of Dracula #25 in 1974 as a private investigator from Milwaukee, Wisconsin, whose life changed when he was bitten by Deacon Frost, the same vampire who gave Blade his daywalker DNA by biting Blade's mother while she was pregnant. In Blade: Trinity, Hannibal was instead turned by Danica Talos, then turned back into a human thanks to a cure developed by Sommerfield.

In the comics, Hannibal swore never to drink blood from a living human and became a vampire detective. He met Blade in Tomb of Dracula #44 and fought him in issue #45. They eventually teamed up to form the Nightstalkers in 1992's Nightstalkers #1, alongside Dracula's descendant Frank Drake, with the goal of destroying Dracula. The Nightstalkers became the precursor to the Midnight Sons, with all three becoming part time members.

The film's Nightstalkers look very different. Alongside Abigail and Hannibal are Dex, played by Ron Selmour, and Hedges, played by Patton Oswalt, who would go on to play Billy, Sam and Ernest Koenig in Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., Pip the Troll in 2021's Eternals, a film that also featured Mahershala Ali's Blade, and the voice of MODOK. Then there's Sommerfield, played by Natasha Lyonne, and her daughter Zoe.

Blade roasts the team, saying they look like rejects from a Saturday morning cartoon. That's ironic, since Blade and Whistler made cameos in the 1990s Spider-Man animated series. He then asks if they think vampire hunting is a sitcom, and the film cuts to Abigail and Hedges, played by two actors famous for sitcoms: Biel on 7th Heaven and Oswalt on The King of Queens.

Ryan Reynolds, Tomb of Dracula and the Daystar virus

Hannibal shows Blade images of Danica from the camera attached to his gun. He's been collecting his vampire slaying clips into volumes, with Kicking Ass Volume 2 sitting next to his mouse. Reynolds gained 25 pounds of muscle for the role. He also does his first fourth wall break in a Marvel film when he pulls out a copy of Tomb of Dracula #55 from 1977. That's the last time a Marvel comic appears in a Marvel project until X-Men comics in 2017's Logan and Marvel comics in a lawyer's office in episode 2 of She-Hulk in 2022.

Hannibal calls Dracula the original perfect vampire and the patriarch of the vampire species. Meanwhile, Drake walks into a Gothic vampire shop where the cashier eats Count Chocula and an employee points out Dracula lunchboxes. A Dracula decal also appears on a vampire's motorcycle before Blade's explosive entrance. Drake throws the goth out a window and feeds on the employee.

Sommerfield reveals the team's ace in the hole, the Daystar virus, named because daystar is a poetic word for the sun. The Nightstalkers theorize that with Dracula's blood they can make a perfect virus to wipe out vampires. During her presentation, Zoe colors a picture of a vampire in the corner. When Blade meets Hedges, he's wearing a big number 4 on his shirt, a reference to the Fantastic Four. Hedges shows off a triple barrel shotgun, a modded Winchester 1887 later reused in Stargate Atlantis, Eureka and Altered Carbon. He also says Dracula can shapeshift into humans, but not into a bat or wolf.

The Underworld crossover and Goyer's scrapped Blade future

Apparently, New Line Cinema planned to expand the Blade universe with a crossover with the Underworld franchise, something Underworld star Kate Beckinsale revealed herself. The idea was scrapped when Marvel Studios got the rights to Blade back in 2012.

One of Goyer's first ideas was to set Blade: Trinity in a future after vampires took over the world, but it was too bleak even for a Blade film. I feel it's a great idea that Marvel Studios should consider following up on, an Old Man Logan type of scenario for Wesley Snipes' Blade. It would be a pretty great way to send him off, just like Fox intended to do with Wolverine in Logan, but that's just me.

Wesley Snipes, David S. Goyer and the troubled shoot

The film was received poorly, leading Goyer to experience a deep depression. One of the biggest reasons he called it the worst experience of his career was the drama between him and Snipes. Apparently, at one point Snipes refused to talk to Goyer, communicating only through Post-it notes signed "Blade." Snipes went full method and wouldn't respond to anyone who didn't call him Blade.

According to Goyer, Snipes' tax issues with the IRS began right when production started, freezing much of his money and making him more irritated on set. According to Patton Oswalt, even though the film didn't turn out as well as they wanted, the fact it was made at all was a triumph given the chaos. The drama ultimately led Snipes to sue Goyer and New Line Cinema, feeling he wasn't allowed to fully act as one of the film's producers and lamenting his reduced presence alongside two other central characters.

I'm pretty sure Goyer would have avoided this lawsuit if one of the two previous directors had made the film. But Blade director Stephen Norrington passed after not being a huge fan of Goyer's script, and Blade II director Guillermo del Toro was busy adapting Hellboy for 2004.

Drake's first encounter with Blade and the scenes that were cut

Abby's iTunes playlist includes Fluke, Jurassic 5, Underworld, Red Snapper, DJ Krush, DJ Shadow and Kruder and Dorfmeister. After Blade dangles a familiar upside down Batman style, they head to the Vance Institute. Hannibal's line that Blade should try blinking once in a while was improvised by Reynolds. Something like a Captain America shield appears on Hannibal's back, but since the design doesn't match, it could be a bullseye.

They find Edgar drained by Drake, who demands Blade show him what he's made of, then runs away and uses a human baby as a distraction. In my opinion, this is one of the lamest first encounters between a hero and villain in a comic book film. Back at base, Abby has a flashback in the shower to the story Whistler told Blade about his family in the first film, which is weird because she wasn't there. The script originally had a love scene between Abby and Blade, but it was never filmed.

Hannibal has William Shatner's 1966 film Incubus on and asks Blade what he'll do if they wipe out the vampires. Blade doesn't answer, but the original screenplay ended with his vampirism cured by Daystar, with Blade throwing his sword off a cliff into the sea and walking into the forest as a fully human man. Goyer instead gave us the first post credits scene in a Marvel Comics production, with Blade cruising off in his Charger to slay more vampires.

Triple H's expanded role and the final battle with Drake

Sommerfield traces the vampires to a company called Biomed at 529 Waterfront Drive, USA 10002, leaving out the city. I'm not sure why the film refuses to name it. The group confronts Virago and Vreede at a human blood farm, a concept Goyer apparently recycled from a deleted scene in the first film showing Deacon Frost storing humans. Meanwhile, Drake kills Dex, Hedges and Sommerfield and kidnaps Zoe, writing Ralph Waldo Emerson's words "immortality will come to such as are fit for it" in blood on a plastic curtain.

Abby channels her anger into archery as the group prepares to rescue the kidnapped Hannibal. During that sequence, Biel destroyed one of the film's $300,000 cameras. She had been directed to aim for it, with the director not expecting her to hit it from 50 feet away.

Blade: Trinity was Triple H's first film role, originally limited, but New Line loved his performance so much it was expanded, which is why he threatens Hannibal with a vampire Pomeranian. It's the second Marvel film with genetically altered dogs, after the villain David Banner altered his in Ang Lee's 2003 Hulk. In the fight, Jarko skips his vampire powers for a running powerslam before Hannibal gets the best of him. In the final battle, Dominic Purcell performed his own sword choreography. Blade stabs Drake with a Daystar arrow, the virus goes airborne and kills Danica and the other vampires. Respecting Blade, Drake shapeshifts into him to help him escape, and humans discover vampires exist when the shapeshift wears off in the morgue.

The alternate ending that teased a Nightstalkers spinoff

An alternate ending was shot to tease a Nightstalkers spinoff starring Abby and Hannibal, set six months after Drake's death. In it, the two bust into a casino in Shanghai to hunt a vampire werewolf hybrid, a move that could have blended well with New Line's plans for an Underworld crossover. What that spinoff would have looked like, the world may never know.