Marvel’s Blade Is A Ripoff Of Kate Beckinsale’s Underworld, So They’re Scrapping It?
Blade being delayed could be because the plot of the reboot movie was far too close to Underworld with Kate Beckinsale.
Underworld, starring Kate Beckinsale, was a surprise hit when it was released in 2003, influencing a group of copycat movies seeking to cash in on the vampire-slaying craze, which might now include Marvel’s upcoming Blade movie starring Mahershala Ali. Bounding Into Comics is reporting a rumor from noted Marvel leaker Overlord DVD, that Blade’s troubled production comes from being too similar to Kate Beckinsale’s Underworld movies. While the concept of warring vampire clans was not first introduced in Underworld, the stylish action-horror movie set a standard that Marvel’s Blade was allegedly emulating a little too closely.
We previously reported, back by our trusted and proven sources, that the first Blade reboot director Bassam Tariq left due to issues with the script. New information brought forward today goes into further detail, including just how similar the Blade script was to Kate Beckinsale’s Underworld. One of the many rumors coming out of Blade is that Tariq knew the script was a loser and wanted to make adjustments, but Kevin Feige was refusing to make changes.
While the plot of the first Underworld is fairly simple, a vampire goes about killing other vampires with guns and stylish leather jackets, the later movies added more to the world, including a daughter for Kate Beckinsale’s character Selene. Rumor is that in the upcoming move, the vampire-killing leather jacket-wearing Blade would also have a daughter. Blade’s daughter would be human for unexplained reasons, but this character would serve as Blade’s mission support. If the story stopped there, then maybe the Underworld comparisons could stop, but there is more to the rumored plot.
Blade’s inexplicably human daughter would get bitten and become a vampire which unlocks her powers. Then, later, Blade’s daughter would have to bite Blade and gain god-like powers as a result. That plot follows very closely with the main story from Underworld: Awakening, which was Kate Beckinsale’s return to the Underworld franchise after sitting out the prequel movie.
Underworld: Awakening introduced a hybrid daughter for Kate Beckinsale’s character Selene, that also had mystical powers beyond the average vampire or werewolf. Now the leather-clad vampire slaying plot of Marvel’s Blade is, according to rumor, going straight into direct rip-off territory. These rumors come after it was previously reported that Blade star Mahershala Ali wanted to leave the project, which at present, has been delayed by a year and is still without a director.
It is worth noting that Marvel’s Blade being similar to the point of a direct rip-off to Kate Beckinsale’s Underworld brings with it another risk, this one from fans of Vampire: The Masquerade, the tabletop RPG developed by White Wolf. The original Underworld movie was accused of being a rip-off of Vampire: The Masquerade to the point that White Wolf filed a lawsuit citing 17 points of copyright infringement and 80 points of similarity. With the recent Werewolf By Night also facing accusations of plagiarism, if Marvel’s Blade was in turn a rip-off of Kate Beckinsale’s Underworld movies, the newly resurgent Vampire: The Masquerade fans could make enough noise to impact the film’s reception.
