Who knew, when the first Blade film by Stephen Norrington debuted in 1998, that it would legitimize Marvel comic properties in the eyes of the movie-going public? Without Blade, we wouldn’t have had the Marvel we have today, ramping up towards a unified cinematic universe.

On the other side of the coin, Wesley Snipes’ portrayal of the character became so iconic that he became a tad too full of himself, leading rumors of on-set tension by the time Blade: Trinity swung through theaters to put the final nail in the coffin stake in the chest of the franchise.

Norrington, who was replaced by Guillermo Del Toro for Blade 2, went on to direct The League Of Extraordinary Gentleman, clashing with Sean Connery and disappearing from the directing landscape the hollowed husk of a man who turned the Alan Moore franchise with super potential into the horrible film that no one had fun making or watching.

As of last December, Norrington announced his return with a “reinvention” of James O’Barr’s The Crow, for better or for worse, and he’s also lining up a return to the world of Blade…just not featuring the Blade character.

In the first film, Stephen Dorff (currently in theaters as Homer in Public Enemies), played a younger vampire lusting after complete power over the vampire race as the legendary Blood God. Spoiler alert: Blade stops him, but that’s not enough to stop Dorff and and Norrington from launching a whole trilogy based on the fanger.

Mania.com reports:

Now Norrington told Comics2Film at Mania.com exclusively that he is planning a return to the ‘Blade’ franchise following his work on the new reinvention of ‘The Crow’.

His leading man of choice is Stephen Dorff, who co-starred as the megalomaniacal Deacon Frost in the film. Of course, Frost apparently died at the end of the first movie as Blade cut him down just as he was about to transform into a vampire god.

Dorff told UK’s The Sunday Mail that the new movie would be “a prequel to the Blade movies, Deacon’s story. It’s a new trilogy the director has created. It will [be] cool.”

Norrington confirmed the news although said the movie is “not exactly how the article describes but close.”

The director credits Dorff with coming up with the idea for the new project, which “has evolved into a very interesting story.”

While that evolution may have carried it away from the source material, Norrington tells us the film is definitely envisioned as part of the existing mythology. “The linkage to ‘Blade’ is still big in the equation.”

This is still a few years away, since we won’t hear about any pre-production news until after The Crow is wrapped (and, oh, there are dozens of ways of screwing up The Crow franchise, this coming from a guy who has read Rob Zombie’s rejected The Crow: 2037).

What do you think? Is the vampire-craze going to last long enough for a Stephen Dorff vampire trilogy to have any sort of draw?

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