Wesley Snipes’ Blade cameo just broke one of Hugh Jackman’s longest records
New Line Cinema/Marvel StudiosWesley Snipes returned as Blade in Deadpool & Wolverine, a cameo that’s been celebrated by fans – although Hugh Jackman may regret the Daywalker’s inclusion.
Snipes debuted as Marvel’s vampire hunter in 1998, returning for two sequels: 2002’s Blade II and 2004’s Blade: Trinity (alongside Ryan Reynolds). Other projects were planned, like a prequel trilogy and a crossover with Underworld, but they fizzled out.
More than 25 years later, he remains the only big-screen Blade (Kirk Jones took on the mantle in a widely forgotten TV series in 2006). The MCU tapped Mahershala Ali for the role in 2019, but his film has remained in development hell ever since, enduring constant rewrites and changing directors.
So, when Deadpool & Wolverine needed a Blade, they called Snipes – and inadvertently broke one of Jackman’s best records.
Wesley Snipes has the longest career as a live-action Marvel character
With his cameo in Deadpool & Wolverine, Snipes has been playing Blade for 25 years 340 days, making him the longest-running star in a single Marvel role.
He’s dethroned Hugh Jackman, who first played Wolverine in 2000’s X-Men. His main competition had been Patrick Stewart as Professor X, similarly debuting in 2000 and reprising his role in 2022’s Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness.
Alas, Jackman will need to return if he wants to reclaim the record. “Whuuuut?! Really? Do I get a certificate too? Lordy Lordy Lordy… thank you [Guinness World Records], I’m your fan,” Snipes wrote on X/Twitter.
Snipes’ performance nabbed another record: the longest gap between character appearances in Marvel films, having last played Blade 19 years 231 days ago. This surpassed Alfred Molina, who had a 17-year gap between 2004’s Spider-Man 2 and 2021’s Spider-Man: No Way Home.
Talking to Variety, he admitted he didn’t think the cameo would be “possible… I didn’t think we would be able to pull it off.”
“I didn’t think that Marvel was into it, Disney was into it – also because they had Mahershala [Ali] cast for the next upcoming version of it,” he explained.
“I thought it didn’t make sense to me, but [when] you get a call from Ryan Reynolds out of the blue after 20 years, you go, ‘Okay, I got to take this call. Let’s see what this is about.’ He told me the idea… they said ‘yes’ and ‘it’s a go.’ ‘If you’re in, we’re in.’ Here we are.”
Make sure you check out our rundown of Deadpool & Wolverine’s Easter eggs, all of its cameos, and our ranking of the MCU movies.