“Mr. Stark, you’ve become part of a bigger universe. You just don’t know it yet… I’m here to talk to you about the Avenger Initiative.”
And with those words in the post-credits scene from this summer’s Iron Man movie, Marvel Studios put into effect their grand plan to dovetail a number of their forthcoming comic book films into one massive teamup of heroes in The Avengers in 2011.
The man who intoned those wordlines was Samuel L. Jackson, portraying Nick Fury, director of the Homeland Security department/spy agency SHIELD to Iron Man’s alter-ego, billionaire industrialist Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.). And while Downey Jr. made a brief cameo in Marvel’s other summer film, The Incredible Hulk, to further the Avengers plotline, fans were already wondering when next we would see Jackson’s Fury.
Now we have an answer, thanks to the folks at IESB who caught up with Jackson while the actor was doing the promotional rounds for his upcoming comedy Soul Men. Jackson has confirmed that he will be back as the eye-patched spymaster in Iron Man 2, which is due out in May 2010.
Jackson replied that as a matter of fact, Iron Man director Jon Favreau spoke to him at the Scream Awards last night and Favreau told Jackson that Nick Fury would have a much more prominent role in the second one.
I think this is potentially exciting news. I don’t think it has really been stressed how much Marvel Studios is out on a limb with the cross-pollination of their superhero films. Sure, comic and genre film geeks are eating it up, but I think it is still up in the air as to whether the average movie-going public will embrace it.
