Blade was released in 1998 in the wake of flops like Batman and Robin and Spawn. The Daywalker's big screen debut could have just as easily bombed, but it was a hit with critics and earned an impressive $131.2 million at the worldwide box office.
While X-Men was already on the way at that point, Blade went a long way towards showing Hollywood that success could be found with superhero movies, and the character would later return in 2002's classic Blade 2. The less said about Blade Trinity, the better, but those first two outings remain beloved and are an important part of comic book movie history.
We recently sat down to talk with star Wesley Snipes about his new comic book venture The Exiled. You can read the full interview by clicking here, but we had to ask the actor what Blade's legacy means to him.
It was then that he explained why he took on the role in the first place!
"It’s amazing. In the beginning, my motivation for doing the first Blade project was to have fun and to do something I knew my homeboys and homegirls would absolutely love," Snipes explains in the video below. "The ones from the martial arts world. The ones from the Shaft world, and the ones who love Kung-fu and all that [Laughs]."
"We knew that would be attractive to that niche audience, but I had no idea it would have broader appeal. However, it was a good lesson. It taught us what was possible. A lot of things we didn’t imagine because we didn’t have the technical tools at the time, but we have them now," he continues. "It’s a great time for us and I’m giddy over the possibility of the potential of doing some of the things we had imagined with the tools we now have available with [The Exiled]."
Unfortunately, the character ended up being sidelined after Blade Trinity, but he would later appear in a short-lived TV series (with Sticky Fingaz taking over the role).
In 2019, Marvel Studios' Hall H panel ended with Kevin Feige announcing that two-time Academy Award winner Mahershia Ali will play the vampire-hunting anti-hero in a Blade reboot. We anticipate that being released in 2024, but we got a taste of this new Daywalker when Ali made a brief voice cameo in Eternals' post-credits scene.
What are your thoughts on the impact the original Blade movie had on superhero blockbusters?