10 Reasons Why The Blade Movies Still Matter

10. It Was The First Marvel Movie Franchise

This may be hard to imagine, especially for younger readers, but... there was a time when Marvel movies were not a thing. Almost inconceivable, we know, but it's the truth.

Indeed, by the late 1990s, Marvel Entertainment was in bad shape. Comic sales were down, and the company was battling bankruptcy, hence they were selling off the screen rights to their characters every which way, resulting in the tangled web of rights issues which it's taken them all these years to untangle (not that it's entirely tangle-free today).

While the movie rights to Marvel superheroes might seem like gold dust in retrospect, the truth is that the characters were not especially hot properties at the time. There had been only one theatrically released movie based on a Marvel character: George Lucas's notorious 1986 misfire Howard the Duck (or two if we count 1985 Conan spin-off Red Sonja, also a widely derided flop).

Beyond that, the only other Marvel movies yet made were 1989's The Punisher starring Dolph Lundgren, and 1990's Captain America; both low budget productions which went straight to video.

And let's not forget 1994's infamously unreleased Roger Corman production The Fantastic Four, or the Nick Fury: Agent of SHIELD TV movie with David Hasselhoff (made in the same year as Blade, remarkably).

Blade changed all that. It was a Marvel movie produced on a proper, large-scale budget, which played in cinemas worldwide. And it did one more thing that was even more significant...