Wesley Snipes' Black Panther would’ve been 'the way the comic book was'

It's no secret that before he starred as the eponymous vampire-killing daywalker in Blade, Wesley Snipes was interested in bringing another Marvel Comic, Black Panther, to the big screen. 

That obviously never happened, and it would take decades before Ryan Coogler brought the world of Black Panther to life as part of the ever-expanding Marvel Cinematic Universe. While the actor has opened up before about what he imagined his own cinematic take would've looked like, Snipes recently spilled a few telling details to Reelblend co-host Kevin McCarthy. 

"At that time, we didn’t actually have the technology," Snipes said, referring to the limitations of special effects in the early/mid-90s. "But we would have done all the Vibranium, all the x-ray vision, virtual operation, and the whole nine of it. I wanted it to be like the comic book was [with a] super-city and super-science." 

Snipes also clarified that this happened about four or five years before he started to work on Blade, and led to him eventually walking away from Wakanda.   

"When Blade came around -- since we didn't do Black Panther -- I thought well this would be a cool opportunity for me to do something for truly my friends," Snipes explained. "All the martial arts cats, all the cats that love Shaft, and all the cats that ever wanted to be a vampire and bite a chick on the neck." 

Now, of course, Blade is being re-introduced into the MCU in Phase 4, thanks largely to Mahershala Ali lobbying Marvel Studios boss Kevin Feige to let him play the character. Snipes, meanwhile, famously wished Ali well before he officially takes on the mantle, while telling all the fans of the original trilogy to simply "chillaaxx."