Before Blade the superhero movie genre was not respected in the mainstream. Blade doesn’t get the credit for its contributions to saving Marvel. Aside from establishing the tone, style, and methodology that most big budget studios based on comic books work from — it paved the way for the wave of comic book movies in recent decades and also rescued Marvel Comics from one of the most tumultuous times in its history. Marvel was experiencing significant financial troubles. The entire comic book industry was struggling in the 1990s, but Marvel was hit particularly hard, as seen by the company’s filing for bankruptcy in 1996. In an attempt to desperately raise money, Marvel resorted to selling off many of the film rights for their characters at the bottom dollar, which led to the fractured set-up we saw in the early 2000s, where different studios owned different characters. This interpretation of Blade paid off. The film made $70 million at the U.S. box office and a further $60 million internationally, recouping its $45 million budget. The success of Blade was also rumored to have played a pivotal role in Fox’s decision to purchase the adaptation rights to the X-Men and the Fantastic Four and for Sony to acquire the adaptation rights for Spider-Man. So know’dat Blade is the most influential Marvel film of all time. Shoutout to Wesley Snipes.