Wesley Snipes: What Went Wrong?

The other day I saw one of Wesley Snipes' latest movies, the straight-to-video b-flick The Marksman. It was quite terrible. It was released in 2005, not a year after the theatrical release of Blade: Trinity, which, while a bit of a disappointment, by no means could be considered a flop. Snipes in fact seems to have made a boatload of stv movies lately, and has several more of them lined up (hint: if an American-produced movie is being shot in Bulgaria, chances are it's a b-movie.). So what gives? How does one go from having a decent Hollywood career to b-movie land within less than year? Other action stars like Jean-Claude van Damme or Steven Seagal suffered a string of box office flops before being relegated to straight-to-video, and someone like Bruce Willis hasn't been able to headline a box office hit in years, but still regularly gets work (and don't get me started on director Uwe Boll!).

Maybe Snipes did burn a few too many bridges over Trinity. Reports of altercations with director David Goyer surfaced during production of the movie, and after its theatrical release Snipes at least threatened to take movie studio New Line to court, alleging breach of contract. That said, plenty of movie stars are, if you pardon my French, pricks. Many of them seem to be doing fine nevertheless (I'll concede that the jury is still on whether Mel Gibson can survive his recent scandal).

Another possible theory, and one I find more likely, is simply a matter of money. Snipes was recently suspected of tax evasion, witholding millions in taxes. Starring in a bunch of these stv flicks is easy money. Even c-movie star Dolph Lundgren receives a million bucks a movie. And his movies generally have a budget of less than five million! Compare that to Snipes' stv movies, which all seems to fall in the 10 - 20 million range, of which at least 10% ought to be Snipes' salary.

Whatever the case may be, Snipes deserved better. Unlike other action stars like Van Damme or Seagal, Snipes had decent acting chops, and regularly appeared in more serious drama movies. Wesley, get over yourself and make Blade IV!

"Some Mother******s Are Always Trying to Ice-Skate Uphill"

Apparently Blade: The TV Series premieres tonight in the US. I quite like the Blade trilogy of movies, particularly Blade II. If you're not familiar with the Blade movies, Blade is a half-man, half-vampire, who runs around killing vampires, equipped with various forms of high-tech gadgetry. What can I say, it's a bit of a guilty pleasure of mine. I know some people are not particularly fond of Wesley Snipes^[1], who stars as Blade in all three movies, but he does quite well for himself in that role^[2].

I'm not sure about this TV series though. For one thing, it stars one Kirk 'Sticky Fingaz' Jones, a former(?) rapper, as Blade. Now, I'm not familiar with Jones' work as a rapper or as an actor, but picking 'Sticky Fingaz' as your artist name certainly raises some quality concerns. Besides that, what else is there to do storywise? In Blade: Trinity, Blade fought against Dracula (ably portrayed by Dominic Purcell and various forms of CGI). Where are you going to go after that? Fighting off Predators?

I'll definitely watch the series whenever it airs in Finland^[3], but I'm not expecting much.

^[1] Whose career has since been lost to the ravages of straight-to-video
^[2] Okay, the Blade character is not much of a stretch actingwise, but you have to admire a guy who gets paid to act like a prick. Isn't that everyone's dream job?
^[3] It should premiere on Finnish television in a couple of years, if ever...