Blade led the way for the success of all the following Marvel movies. No Spiderman or X-Men or Disney buying Marvel without Blade. No Iron Man, Captain America, Thor, Black Panther, or Avengers without Blade.
^^^^ Marvel was in the toilet before Blade. Blade was a sleeper hit that summer and was the first official hit of not just Marvel films, but the comicbook superhero genre in general. Before this super-slick R-rated feature, it was B-movies with day-glo tights. NO ONE took the the genre seriously. Blade, a black superhero changed all of that.
The Brain Squirrel Monologues 