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21-Aug-02
David S. Goyer

BLADE III: NIGHTSTALKERS

(story concept)
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The basis for Blade HI is simple - we want to return the franchise to its roots. We want
Blade III to be firmly set in the real worid, even more so than ihe first fiim.

In the second film, Blade found himself caught between the vampires and the reapers. In
the third film, Blade will find himself caught between the vampires and humans - for the
vampires are going to "out" Blade. They are going to reveal his existence to the world
and turn the system against him. Now, Blade will be running from the police as well as •
the vampires. His whole world will be taken out from under him - Whistler, his arsenal,
his safe-houses. All of that will be stripped away. The film will be Blade as The
Fugitive. Tn a sense, the vampires are waging a PR war against Blade.

As the film begins, we are watching a Larry King-type show. KIERAN RYAN, a good-
looking pundit, is debating with Larry about the existence of vampires. Ryan says it's all
an overblown myth - what the public should really be worried about are people like
Blade. Blade is a psychopath - a killer with a deeply twisted world-view who has been
caught murdering people on videotape numerous times.

Blade will be caught on videotape yet again - purportedly killing n vampire. But when
the authorities investigate, the victim turns out to be human. Blade has been tricked. "
Framed.

Suddenly, Blade's image is everywhere - in the newspapers, on the nightly news. He's
being portrayed as public enemy number oI1t, and the police are after him.

Act One ends with the police converging on Blade's headquarters. A vicious fire-fight
ensues and Whistler is killed. Whistler dies like a classic gunfighter, in a blaze of glory-
think Holden in The Wild Bunch. The headquarters itself is destroyed, goes up in flames.
And Blade is captured - restrained like a mad dog. Taken to jail.

Act Two begins with Blade imprisoned. He's been doped up, stripped of his weapons.
The police are grilling him. They think he's delusional. (Think of the best elements of
T2.) But it gets worse - the CHIEF OF POLICE is actually a vampire familiar. Andjust
when things look darkest -

-- HANNIBAL KING arrives, breaking Blade out of captivity. Who is Hannibal?

Another Marvel Universe character that frequently aligned himself with Blade. King is a
hunter/mercenary that used 10 be a vampire but has since cured himself. He hates
vampires as much as Blade does - and he's been aware of Blade from the get-go. King is

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Blade's counterpart - now a Robin to Blade's Batman - but a fully-fonned hero in his
own tight.

King knows that the vampires have declared war on Blade, and he wants to help Blade.
It seems the vampires are making their Hnal move, It's time for them to come out of the
shadows. Because of the urgency of the situation, King doesn't have time to indulge in a
turf war wiili Blade. They need to pool their resources.

King has a whole arsenal of new weapons at his disposal. He's the flip-side of Blade.
An extrovert - talkative, white, with an entirely different approach to vampire hunting.
He's got his own series of safe-houses and procedures as well. King works with a
loosely affiliated group of vampire-hunters called THE NIGHTSTALKERS. Among the
Nightstalkers is another character from the TOMB OF DRACULA comics - FRANK
DRAKE. Drake is a direct descendent of VIad Tepes Dracula, i.e. COUNT DRACULA.

It turns out that Dracula really existed. He was the first vampire. He's thousands of
years old. And - (if you go back to the source material, Bram Stoker's Dracula) - he's
also a Daywalker. Dracula has returned. In effect, he's the vampire messiah. His
reemergence in the world is what has catalyzed the vampires. Because he's a Daywalker,
they no longer need Blade. They simply want Blade gone. He's been a thorn in their
side for too long, and they want him removed as they begin taking over.

But Dracula won't be played like Bela Lugosi or Frank L<mgella. He's the Blade
universe version ofthe Count. A literal shape-shifter (again, going back to Stoker's
book) who can assume anyone's face - even Blade's. (That's how the vampires were
able to set Blade up - Dracula was posing as Blade, killing an innocent human on tape.)

At first, Blade himself doesn't even believe ilial Dracula exists - and we're going to play
on that disbelief. ("Dracula? You gotta be fucking kidding me.") We're going to have
fW1 with it. King and Drake will reference all $he books and movies and Dracula toys.
Dracula can essentially hide in plain sight now because everyone thinks he's simply a
brand-name.

But eventually, Blade will come to believe that Dracula does exist. And he will prove to
be the most fornlidable enemy that Blade has ever faced. Dracula is smarter, faster,
stronger - and he can assume the face of every human being walking around on this
planet.

Think about it. Blade fought a reaper in Blade II. Who else could Blade fight in the third
flIm that would really give him a nm for his money. By saying he will be fighting
Dracula, the audience already knows that Blade will be going up against the toughest
vampire that ever existed. No one is more formidable than Dracula.

The vampires are making pacts with the politicians. They are opening up large-scale
blood fanning facilities - vast, ware-house tombs where thousands of human victims are
kept on life-support, milked of their life-blood. Where do the victims come from? The
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homeless. The drug-addicts. The fringe-elements. The vampires are bUying up skid
row, getting lid of the riff-raIT, and feeding on them. This is just one example of the kind
of horrors that the vampires have planned.

Another trick I'd like the vampires to employ is 10 have them port the vampire virus over
into other life-forms. I envision a fun scene where B.lade has to go up against 11 pack of
vampire-Rotweillers that have been sent after him.

Ultimately, Blade will face-off against Dracula. And as our filtn hurtles towards its
conclusion, Blade's new allies, the Nightstalkers, will reveal their own plan. They want
to use Blade's DNA to create a biological weapon to use against the vampires - a
smallpox-like disease that will kill all vampires. The only catch is, if Blade re.leases this
weapon, he may end up killing himself because of his half-breed status.

I want the final act of the film to be a gauntlet for Blade. Blade is racing against time to
release this weapon and the vampires have no choice but to send their entire force after
him. For the final act, the paradigm shifts. Now the vampires come out of the woodwork
- they can't afford to use deception or stealth. A series of chases and fights spill over
into the real world, with hundreds of human witnesses seeing the vampires - and the
vampires using those witnesses as human-shields. We want Blade chasing vampires into
traffic, jumping over and in-between cars, shooting vampire-monstrosities right and left.

For the climax, Blade turns the tables on the vampires and irrefutably outs them. Dracula
is killed by Blade in £i'ont of dozens of witnesses. And when he goes down, he is not in
human form.

I also believe that this installment of the franchise will provide more humor opportunities.
One of the funniest moments in the first film was when Blade was shot at by the police
and said "Motherfuekers! Are you out of your motherfucking mind?!" I want the entire
movie to have that kind of feel.
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Also, there is the potential, if we develop King and Drake right, to make them franchise
spin-off characters.