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Denzel Washington said he's to join the modern-day pantheon of heroes as an as-yet-unspecified character in Marvel Studios' Black Panther movie franchise, but as it turns out - he almost did so 30 years before. No, not as Black Panther... as Blade.

David S. Goyer, the writer of all three Blade movies (and director of the third), said once that the studio head in charge of Blade gave Goyer and the film-makers three options for the star of Blade - with different budgets for the movie depending on who they went with.

"[New Line studio head] Mike DeLuca said 'I’ll make it for $40 million if you can get Denzel Washington, 35 if you can get Wesley Snipes, and 20 if you can get Laurence Fishburne.' And that was it," Goyer told Entertainment Weekly. "We wanted Wesley."

When Blade was in in early development, Wesley Snipes was busy at Marvel with another project - an attempted live-action version of Black Panther as a film. It was that project not happening which opened up Snipes' schedule to do Black Panther.

And now, with Snipes' Blade firmly in the MCU, his rival to play Blade is looking to join him in a third Black Panther movie.

Keep up to date on Popverse's Marvel coverage, with these highlights:

• Marvel Studios has accidentally created a new Phase that predates Phases 1 - 6: the MCU Phase Zero
• Which Secret Wars comic the Russos are basing Avengers 6 off of
• Overgrown children of the atom: Marvel's X-Men can't evolve past their '90s commercial peak
• The biggest outstanding questions of the Marvel Studios' movies & TV shows
• Marvel's accidental closure on the Kang storyline
• Robert Downey Jr. is entering his villain era
• Donald Trump is the landlord for Marvel's House of Ideas
• For Marvel actors, the MCU also stands for the Marvel Commercials Universe
• The Fantastic 4: First Steps offers Marvel a visual makeover, courtesy of a classic movie designer
• Marvel Studios swapping out Doctor Doom for Kang offers the chance to jettison the Multiverse Saga