Blade: The Series Bites Deeper - Begins Tonight On Spike TV

From The Sci-Fi Wire:
David S. Goyer, co-creator and executive producer of Spike TV's upcoming Blade: The Series, told SCI FI Wire that the television series will bite deeper into the franchise's mythology than the three Blade movies that Goyer also wrote. "It's a serialized show, so we're having the opportunity to tell a single story over the course of 13 episodes," he said in an interview. "So we're getting to kind of delve much more into the whole kind of inner workings of the vampire world. We're treating them sort of like the ultimate crime family. ... [Like The Sopranos] with blood-drinking, I guess."

Goyer co-wrote the two-hour Blade pilot with comic author Geoff Johns. Peter O'Fallon (Suicide Kings, Eureka, American Gothic) directed it. Goyer wrote all the Blade movies and directed the third one, Blade: Trinity. All are based on the venerable Marvel Comics franchise. (Goyer's fellow executive producer, Davis Simkins of Charmed and FreakyLinks, will be the show runner for Blade: The Series

Writer and supervising producer Dan Truly explained that the show will open up the character of the half-vampire warrior, played by Kirk "Sticky" Jones. "There's a kind of tension between keeping Blade the hero of the show, but also opening up his character dramatically, to understand who he is, where he comes from," Truly said. "TV does character stories much better. There's only so much action you can do on a TV budget and a TV schedule, but the key is to keep all the elements of Blade and just to open up the stories more so we understand who he is and understand more of a more complicated kind of political vampire world."

Blade: The Series premieres June 28 at 10 p.m. ET with limited commercials.

- The Monster