The Marvel Cinematic Universe officially kicked off in 2008 with Iron Man and honestly, the rest is history. However, that was far from the first comic book film to ever race the big screen in the modern Hollywood landscape. Even before X-Men or Spider-Man, there was the vampire hunter Blade, and there is still hope for another movie in that series according to star Wesley Snipes.

Wesley Snipes recently took to Twitter to answer some fan questions and as it often does, the subject of him returning to the Blade franchise came up. Snipes has talked about the prospect of a return to the character for Blade 4 before, especially in recent years as Marvel has been expanding their brand quite a bit. His most recent comments echo things that he has stated previously, but apparently the decision is in the hands of Marvel Studios at this point.

"When it comes to another BLADE, there's always a possibility. #SharpeningMyTeeth. Balls in Marvels court..."

This is far from the first time we have heard of the studio and Snipes supposedly flirting with bringing the character of Blade back in some form or another. Some rumors have persisted that there may be room for him on the film side of things, but a more likely scenario would be on the TV side of Marvel Studios, where a lot of the darker content is being made, like Daredevil on Netflix. Speaking of Netflix, a rumor was floating around last week that the streaming service was looking to produce a few more shows based on Marvel properties, one of which was in fact Blade. The other rumored properties that Netflix was reportedly looking at were Ghost Rider and Moon Knight.

The original Blade came out in 1998 and did relatively well at the box office, bringing in $131 million worldwide. That was good enough to spawn two sequels, with the Guillermo Del Toro directed Blade II doing the best both critically and financially, making $155 million. What's perhaps more important to note though is that Blade was a rated R comic book adaptation long before Deadpool managed to make that a very successful prospect earlier this year. It is also somewhat fun to note that Ryan Reynolds also appeared in Blade: Trinity, though that was not exactly a critical or financial win at the time.

Marvel is obsessive about their continuity, so it may seem weird to even think about bringing Snipes back for another run at the vampire hunter, but it on the big or small screen. Though, the world that Blade took place in could easily have taken place in the current MCU timeline without effecting anything that Marvel is currently working on or has currently in place. In all likelihood, this is something Marvel Studios has considered, but really it is probably a lot of Snipes trying to campaign for a big franchise, being that his career hasn't been exactly in the best place for the past few years. In any case we may see vampires in the MCU at some point, if Snipes has his way.