Blade 4:Ain't It Cool News recently sat down with writer/director David Goyer to discuss, among other things, the future of the Blade franchise. The interview revealed some startling facts regarding New Line Cinema's willingness to move the franchise ahead without actor Weslet snipes starring the lead...

We were talking about the ending of BLADE TRINITY at the time. You were tinkering with it and could possibly go in two different directions with it. Are you still working on that?

There are a lot of rumors about the ending, none of which are completely right. I’ve seen a lot of people saying that he dies, or that they changed the ending so that he doesn’t die. I don’t want to give anything away, obviously, but I love it when I read stuff online that is put forward with such complete (authority), and then it becomes canon because other websites pick it up and you just sit there, shake your head and say, “No, you don’t know. That’s not even remotely what’s happening.” But there are definitely different endings that we’ve been playing around with, some versions of which will show up on the DVD as deleted scenes. We’re doing a third test in the coming weeks, and that will be the ending that was scripted. We’ve never tested that ending, so we’ll see how that goes. There were also a lot of differences of opinion as to – and, unfortunately, until the movie comes out, I can’t fully reveal this. But there was a lot of internal dissent between different parties as to what way to go with the ending.

Between New Line and yourself?

And even Marvel, too. It’s actually been quite the happy family in the main, but there are just a lot of different people with wildly opinions about how, as the third movie, it should end. Everyone was very passionate about it, and I was surprised at the positions some of the party took.

I would think that some of this would have to do with maintaining the franchise, and going forward with the Nightstalkers.

Yes and no. I know this sounds crazy, but, originally, New Line… it could go any different direction. There could be another BLADE; there could not be another one. There could be a NIGHTSTALKERS; there could not be another one. There could be another BLADE without Wesley. New Line was willing to do that. It just depends. And I’m not trying to give you a bullshit Hollywood answer, but… at the end of the day all of these decisions are made, first and foremost, because of business considerations. It’s how profitable the film is… the DVD’s… things like that. How much money do they have to pay the star, and does that cut into their profits? Things like that. I remember at one point they were saying, “Oh, we should make another one with DMX.” And just because of DMX, it’ll be $10 million cheaper. But then will it make as much money? I don’t know.

I was going to say that I just received the KILL BILL VOL. 2 DVD the other day. Michael Jai White’s pretty badass with a sword in that deleted scene.

Different people online have said that he should be the new Blade. He’s a good actor, and he certainly knows martial arts. We used to talk about if we did a television show maybe he could play Blade. The difference between Blade and Batman, having another actor play the character, is that, with Batman, there had been the Adam West Batman, and then there was Michael Keaton. And people were wondering how the franchise would continue if it wasn’t Michael Keaton. With Blade, there’s only been one version, and it’s always been Wesley. If it were a prequel, I could see the audience buying it. Would the audience buy it if it wasn’t Wesley and it was a sequel? I don’t know.

The interesting thing with Wesley nowadays is that he does the BLADE movies, and that’s it.

He’s certainly, in the last decade, not really known for much else.