Blade

The extended trailer for Full Moon Direct's Puppet Master: Axis of Evil is available after the jump and features some wicked little puppets, a few Nazis and Geisha saboteur -- huzzah! The film is directed by Puppet Master veteran David DeCoteau, with a script by August White (my favorite title of his is Evil Bong, though I've never seen the movie) and stars newbie Levi Fiehler.

The setting for evil puppet shenanigans takes place in a Stateside hotel during World War II, where young Danny Coogan dreams of joining the war effort. After a hotel guest is murdered by a few pesky Nazi assassins, Danny discovers the victims crate of puppets and then stuff gets really real. Nazis Max and Klaus (of course those are their names) and a Japanese saboteur (I'm assuming she's the Geisha from the trailer) plan to attack an American manufacturing plant and now it's up to Danny and his gaggle of blood-thirsty puppets to stop the AXIS OF EVIL!

Check out the trailer after the jump. Looks like Blade, Tunneler and Leech Woman are back!

Marvel's Blade universe is a fairly extensive one, with the character crossing paths with such branded standbys as SHIELD and Doctor Strange. Naturally, very little of this was ever used in the Blade film trilogy, and if you longed to see a touch more of the comic series on the big screen, there might be hope. According to Comics2Film, Steven Norrington is returning to the franchise, and spinning a Blade-less, Wesley Snipes-less spinoff.

Norrington and Stephen Dorff have apparently been talking about a Deacon Frost spinoff for some time. Dorff initially broke the news via The Sunday Mail. "It will be a prequel to the Blade movies, Deacon's story. It's a new trilogy the director has created. It will [be] cool. We hope to shoot the first film next year. Frost is a character I have never been able to shake." Norrington confirmed the story, but quickly added that the movie wasn't exactly what the Mail described before crediting Dorff with the idea.

What isn't clear is what path the Frost spinoff will take, since Norrington acknowledged that Blade departed from the Marvel series, but promised that despite Dorff being front and center, "the linkage to Blade is still big in the equation." That probably means they'll link the two via Blade's bitten mother, but I wonder if they'll actually go into Frost's comic past as a immortality seeking scientist. Or did Dorff come up with an origin story wildly different than the scientific one of the comics? We'll see. But is this the way you wanted Blade to return, or could you do without a Frost / Dorff spinoff?