Wesley Snipes continues to keep things classy when discussing Marvel’s upcoming Blade reboot, with the actor revealing what he thinks will make the MCU installment a success. Snipes, who played the famous vampire hunter in a previous iteration, has no doubt that lead actor and Oscar winner Mahershala Ali will make the role his own but believes that it is the people around him that will determine whether the Blade reboot is embraced by audiences or not.

“My question is not with him, it’s the people around him. It takes something great and very special to make an iconic film. And you don't even know if it's gonna be iconic until it's done. The people decide it. . . I want the same reaction we got with the versions we did. Audiences in the theater were yelling and clapping. I'm looking for that.”

Snipes’ outings as Blade are indeed iconic, particularly the first movie, which did indeed provoke big reactions for scenes such as the Blood Rave, as well as the rest of the wonderfully violent action sequences, the cool charisma of Wesley Snipes, and the gritty, R-rated world in which it all takes place. In fact, Blade single-handedly saved Marvel from financial ruin thanks to its box office success, and thus led to not only the Marvel Cinematic Universe but arguably modern cinema’s obsession with comic book movies as a whole. Now that is quite the legacy to follow.

But follow the Blade reboot will, with the character having now made his debut in the MCU, albeit as just a voice during a post-credits scene at the end of the recent outing, Eternals. "It was really cool, getting to do that [voice cameo],” Mahershala Ali said of finally bringing Blade to life for the first time. “It was scary. Because, you know, you're talking before you're filming it. I'm pretty particular about my choices, like most actors, and so having to make some choices - even with a line, vocally - this early on, it brought up some very real anxieties. And it made the job real. It's like, 'Okay, this is happening now', you know, and that's exciting."

Very little is currently known about Marvel’s Blade, which some rumors have claimed will be titled Blade: The Vampire Slayer. Moonlight star Mahershala Ali had been the only actor to join the project for some time, but it was recently revealed that Da 5 Bloods star Delroy Lindo has also now signed on, suggesting that Marvel do plan on surrounding Ali’s lead with actors of equal talent. Watchmen writer Stacy Osei-Kuffour was recently tapped to pen the script, with Mogul Mowgli director Bassam Tariq recently confirming that he is on board to helm the project.

According to the filmmaker himself, the reputation of Wesley Snipes’ Blade is not being forgotten. "Him being a daywalker is the one thing that's been established, and you know we can't deny what Wesley Snipes did, which was he basically got this whole ball rolling,” Tariq said. “A Black man created the superhero world that we're in, that's just the truth. For me to now be working with somebody as talented and a juggernaut as Mahershala Ali, and the writer Stacy Osei-Kuffour, I'm just so - I'm so honored to be working with real Black juggernauts and Black talent. For me to just be with them in this room and listen and learn as I build this out, it's really an honor." Wesley Snipes can currently be seen in Netflix's True Story. This comes to us from ET.