Wesley Snipes returns as Blade in Deadpool & Wolverine: here’s why we have Ryan Renolds to thank

On Thursday night at Comic-Con 2024 in San Diego, Marvel abandoned months of secrecy during a huge Hall H panel, fully embracing the unveiling of all the A-list surprise cameos in Deadpool & Wolverine.

Among the attending actors, such as Jennifer Garner, Channing Tatum, and Chris Evans, Wesley Snipes received one of the loudest reactions from the enthusiastic crowd.

At 61, Snipes makes a surprising comeback as Blade, the beloved Daywalker and vampire hunter from Marvel Comics, who starred in the 1998 flagship film, followed by Blade II in 2002 and Blade: Trinity in 2004.

In an exclusive interview with Entertainment Weekly following the spectacular Hall H debut, the actor shared that he never imagined this comeback would be possible.

"Over the years, we've had very interesting conversations, some of them very substantive and some of them not," he says during an interview in EW's Comic-Con suite.

"So I kind of resided that I was moving on from them, which is okay. I did three of them, and I thought they turned out pretty good. Not so bad... So we move on to other things, and bigger and better things, as well."

Then he got a text message from Ryan Reynolds, the star, producer, and co-writer of Deadpool & Wolverine, who had co-starred with Snipes in Blade: Trinity two decades ago.

The message said, "I want to talk to you."

"I did not think it was possible," Snipes recalls. "I didn't think we would be able to pull it off. I didn't think that Marvel was into it, Disney was into it — also because they had Mahershala cast for the next upcoming version of it."