There’s No Marvel Cinematic Universe Without Blade

In Deadpool & Wolverine, there’s one superhero in particular whose appearance serves as a reminder of their foundational contributions to the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) being what it is today: Wesley Snipes’ Blade.

Although not the first Marvel movie — that honor belongs to 1986’s woefully undercooked Howard The Duck— it was the first successful one.

It’s sort of surprising that Bladewas a success, though. Superhero flicks weren’t wasn’t as prominent as they are now, and while iconic properties like Batman and Superman had been largely successful, there was no precedent for third-tier heroes making big box office profits. To be clear, Blade wasn’t a well-known superhero from Marvel’s roster. This, along with Blade being a Black character (most, if not all, comic book movies up until Blade— unless you count New Line Cinema’s antihero Spawnfrom 1997 — were centered around white superheroes) and the film being R-rated seemingly limited Blade’s prospects for success. It didn’t feel like it would work. It didn’t feel like it could.

But it did.

Bladedebuted at No.1 at the box office before going on to gross $131.2 million worldwide on a $45 million budget. It spawned two sequels (Blade IIand Blade: Trinity) that each at least doubled their budget at the box office. More importantly, the flick was a proof-of-concept for superhero flicks that could be both fantastical and grimly realistic. X-Menwould follow in 2000, with Sam Raimi’s original Spider-Man trilogy hitting soon after. By 2008, Marvel Studios, a branch that split off from Fox years beforehand, released Iron Man, setting the stage for the multi-billion dollar Marvel Cinematic Universe.

“We laid the foundation for something bigger than we even imagined,” Snipes said in a 2018 interview with Vice.

Bladedidn’t just signal the potential Marvel could have in the movie industry; it also proved that Black superheroes deserved a place on the big screen. It’s fair to wonder if fans would have gotten a Black Panther film without Blade being released nearly 20 years prior.

As the Bladereboot continues to be in development hell, it remains to be seen when the character’s next film appearance will be. But, as Snipes has shown to the almost 14 million people who’ve seen Deadpool & Wolverine, he’s still more than capable of playing the brooding vampire killer who put Marvel on the path to multiversal success.