Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson) is one of the staples of the MCU. He helped build Marvel’s massive universe of stories by founding the Avengers. In the early days of the MCU, all Marvel needed to connect a movie to the rest of the MCU was Fury. Jackson’s cameos were short, but the role evolved significantly over time to the point where Nick Fury got his own MCU Phase 4 project. And it turns out that Fury will appear in more than just Secret Invasion.
The news comes from Samuel L. Jackson himself, who confirmed the upcoming roles in a recent interview. Mind you, some spoilers might follow below.
How did Nick Fury lose his eye?
The last time we saw Nick Fury, he was aboard a mysterious spaceship in Earth’s orbit, working on a project that might be revealed in the MCU’s Phase 4. That happened in the post-credits scenes of Far From Home. The second MCU Spider-Man movie came 11 years after Fury’s introduction in Iron Man.
Interestingly enough, it took more than a decade, from Iron Man (2008) to Captain Marvel (2019), to find out the truth about Fury’s eyepatch. We know it was a special variety of cat that harmed a younger Nick Fury back in the day when he was still working in the field. At least we won’t have to wait until the MCU Phase 4 to learn that answer.
But it’s still important to remember that Fury’s initial appearances in the MCU were a lot shorter than in recent years. The cameos conveyed a simple message to the audience. They told us Fury was about to recruit another superhero for a special team. That team would turn out to be the Avengers.
Little did we know in the early phases of the MCU that we’ll see Fury’s character grow significantly. And we started seeing more and more of him. Movies like The Avengers and Captain America: The Winter Soldier stand out, as they deliver plenty of character development for Nick Fury.
He then saved the day one more time in Age of Ultron, but then he died in the post-credits scene of Infinity War, along with half of the living beings in the universe.
MCU Phase 4 will bring us more Nick Fury than we thought
It was only in Captain Marvel that Jackson became a co-star in an MCU movie. That was one of the final titles of the Infinity War, and the last Marvel movies to hit cinemas before Endgame brought everyone back.
What’s interesting to note is that we haven’t really seen Nick Fury anywhere on Earth ever since Far From Home. Samuel L. Jackson did voice the Fury variants from What If…?. But the primary Fury version from the MCU is still MIA. The closest thing to having Fury in the MCU right now is a remark in No Way Home telling Spider-Man that Fury has been off-world for quite a while.
A series of recent leaks showed that Secret Invasion was filming in London, UK. That’s a Disney Plus MCU Phase 4 TV show that features a massive cast, with Nick Fury being one of the protagonists.
We also expected to see Jackson play the character in the Captain Marvel sequel. That’s The Marvels, set to premiere on February 17th.
But we had no idea that the actor has also filmed scenes for an unexpected MCU Phase 4 adventure. That’s Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, the third installment in the Ant-Man series.
The surprise role
Jackson revealed as much on the Happy Sad Confused podcast. The actor talked about the busy filming schedule in London when he dropped the Quantumania reveal.
“It’s kind of strange when someone tells you they’re going to give you a nine-picture deal,” Jackson said. “You know, you go, ‘How long am I going to stay alive to make nine pictures?’ Because it used to take a while to make a movie. It still kind of does, but people make two or three of them at a time. In the Marvel Universe…it’s crazy.”
“When I was in London just now,” said Jackson. “It was [Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania], and [The Marvels] was happening, and we were getting ready to do [Secret Invasion]. So it was like, three Marvel movies on one lot. I was kind of running around from place to place.”
Quantumania comes out on July 28th, so we have plenty of time to learn more secrets about it. But Jackson just spoiled a mysterious cameo. Interestingly, Nick Fury never showed up in an Ant-Man movie before, so he might as well do it in the MCU Phase 4.
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