I think a big part of the hype is not that it's here, but that it's FINALLY here. A lot of people remember how Wesley Snipes said he wanted to do a movie based on the Black Panther character since the early 90's, and Hollywood was going to allow him to do it too. He was supposed to star in it and everything and it kept getting tossed around, announced that it was moving forward for years and then... nothing. Next thing you know, Wesley is Blade and shit if off the hook so after the first one some folks was like "aiight bet, now he can get back to Black Panther..." but it never happened. Here we are well over 20 years later and cats like me that were heavy into comics back then are finally getting a movie we were promised back in college... and ths shit looks dope as fuck. This level of hype is natural.
Honestly, I don't think it would have gotten the right treatment had it been done back then. I doubt the budget to do it justice would have been there back then. I mean, Spike Lee could barely get money to make his movies, Robert Townsend's budgets were minimal as fuck, Matty Rich and Singleton's flicks were shoestring, so even with Wesley being as big a star as he was back then I doubt he would have gotten enough money to do it right.