Stephen Dorff reflects on his lost Blade spinoff movie

Despite his recent turn in True Detective season 3 and his new starring role in Fox’s Deputy, if you go and Google Stephen Dorff right now, the first additional suggested word you’ll get is ‘Blade’. The action-horror was pretty dark and gory compared to most of today’s Marvel offerings, but the studio’s 1998 vision for the vampire Hunter was surprisingly successful, and Dorff proved to be a formidable villain in the film as bloodsucker Deacon Frost, so it’s no wonder that the actor still gets asked about the role.

In a new interview with ET, Dorff, who has been a steady presence in movies since he first popped up as a wee sprog in 1987’s cult horror classic, The Gate, was asked about Marvel’s plans for a new Blade incarnation utilising his True Detective co-star, Mahershala Ali.

“I saw him after it was announced [at Comic-Con 2019] and I’m happy for him,” Dorff said. “I think he’ll do a great job with Blade and reinventing the franchise. It probably should’ve been done a while ago, but I think it’s good for him. But I mean, I love the guy. I’m sure he’ll do it justice. To have such a great actor in the part of Blade for this new generation, it’ll be great.”

Dorff also revealed that at one point there was some discussion about getting the ball rolling on a Blade spinoff movie focusing on Deacon Frost.

“We talked about doing a Deacon Frost movie on its own at one point, me and the director of the original Blade, who is just a genius, Stephen Norrington, and it never really happened because Marvel was a new entity and Kevin Feige was kind of building this whole new universe he’s built successfully. They weren’t really interested in the dark Marvel movie but maybe after Joker and all this stuff, maybe it’ll start to be trendy. I definitely would love to reinvent that character because that character’s someone who really stands [the test of time]. I still talk about [him] 20-something years later. I’m still signing Deacon Frost pictures out front today, so we’ll see where it goes.”

The actor – bless him – also paused with ET to mull whether he’d still reprise his role as Frost for a spinoff, which would be lovely but terrifically unlikely at this stage.

“I definitely would love to reinvent that character because that character’s someone who really stands [the test of time],” he said, presumably without a hint of irony.

We leave you with this clip of the original Blade’s alternate ending, where Dorff becomes a swirling tower of CGI blood, for no reason other than it’s one of the first DVDs we bought and we find its existence unforgettable: