The Avengers: Age of Ultron recently started production, but it looks like filming won’t affect Samuel L. Jackson’s schedule very much. The actor, who has played Col. Nick Fury in most of the Marvel Studios movies so far, says he’s barely in it.
“I’m not doing so much, I don’t think,” Jackson recently told Yahoo UK. “It’s another one of those ‘people who have powers fighting people who have powers’ [movies]. There’s not a lot I could do except shoot a gun.”
If he sounds a little put out, we wouldn’t blame him. Samuel L. Jackson had a nine-picture deal with Marvel Studios, but The Avengers: Age of Ultron will already mark his seventh appearance as Col. Nick Fury. (Eight, if you count his cameos on “Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.” But we doubt that counts.) But despite his star power and ubiquitous presence, Fury has never taken center stage in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. He’s been an important side player and bearer of exposition, but as the stories get bigger – and especially after the events of Captain America: The Winter Soldier – there doesn’t seem to be as much of a place for him now as there was as the franchise was getting started.
Hopefully he’ll go out with a bigger bang… or sign on for another nine films.
William Bibbiani is the editor of CraveOnline’s Film Channel and co-host of The B-Movies Podcast. Follow him on Twitter at @WilliamBibbiani.
