Wesley Snipes Says Michael Jackson Asked to Be in BLADE II
Actor Wesley Snipes has had a great career with a lot of interesting film and TV roles. Some may not remember that one of his earliest gigs was as a character named Mini Max in Michael Jackson’s “Bad” music video.
He became friends with Jackson during the shoot, who didn’t even realize Snipes was an actor. He thought he was just a guy off the street that was hired to star in the video. The pair stayed in touch, and Jackson became as big a fan of Snipes as the actor was of him.
Years later, when Snipes was working on his super-antihero sequel film, Blade II, he heard from his old friend, King of Pop Michael Jackson, and he wanted in on the action, literally.
In a 2017 Billboard article that did a deep dive on Michael Jackson’s top 5 hits, Snipes talked about getting the call from Jackson:
“I’ve had some interesting conversations with Michael, the grandmaster Michael. Michael actually asked me if he could be in Blade II. The great Michael wanted to be in one of the Blade movies, to be a tough guy. I was like, ‘Mike, which one you gonna do? You wanna play one of the vampires?’
He was like, ‘No! I wanna be like Blade’s friend — I wanna fight with you!’ I said, ‘Oh Mike, you got jokes.’ He was like, ‘No, I’m serious!’ It’s very hard to imagine how people would have managed seeing Michael Jackson in the Blade movie. I don’t know. [Laughs.]”
Yeah, that wouldn’t have worked out. It’s fun to think about though. Blade II came out over two decades ago, and Snipes went on to make a third film, Blade: Trinity two years later.
We thought that was the last we would ever see him in the role, until this summer when he reprised the part in Deadpool & Wolverine. He looked great, and fans were stoked to see him.
Over five years ago, Marvel announced they were rebooting the franchise with actor Mahershala Ali, but the project has gone through writers and directors, and has still never quite come together.
So Snipes, as well as fans and Deadpool actor Ryan Reynolds, have all mentioned that maybe everyone could get back onboard with the original actor returning to the role.
Nothing official has been released, but you know they have to be considering it! With the dip in fan enthusiasm over the last couple of years, they must take into account what the fans will show up to see. But I guess we will just have to wait and see how it will all pan out.