WARNING: Spoilers below for the film Split, Unbreakable 2, some Marvel films, and a few other possible films featuring Samuel L. Jackson. Read at your own risk.
Samuel L. Jackson is a busy man. He’s never short on film work and when he’s not starring or cursing his way on screen, he’s got plenty of commercial work to supplement that income. Not that we’re complaining. The man still has it and is usually a welcome sight, even if the film isn’t too welcome itself.
But according to a new chat with We Got This Covered, there’s film he wasn’t considered for despite his very reasonable claim. Jackson has made the character of Nick Fury his own on the big screen, playing the character in pretty much every film the studio has put out at this point. But when it comes to Black Panther, he had to stay away:
Yeah, I’d love to do a Nick Fury movie. I’m always open and game. But they got Infinity Wars, two movies to do there, and after that there’s Brie [Larson’s] movie Captain Marvel, which maybe [Nick] will be part of. Also, I asked them, “So you’re doing Black Panther and the only black character in the Marvel Universe is not showing up?” And they’re like, “Nick Fury is not in Wakanda!” How can he not know the other black superhero on the planet? How the hell does that work? But they just said, “No you’re not in that one.”
It makes sense here. Can’t they just add him to the post-credits scene like Fox does with the X-Men films? It worked for Iron Man.
That’s not the only film that has Jackson’s interest heading into this weekend. He’s also well aware of the big twist in Split and its connection to Unbreakable 2. According to a chat with Collider, he’s been in contact with Shyamalan and he’s ready for a jailbreak:
“I got a call and [Shyamalan] said, ‘Call me I wanna talk to you about something.’ And I called him, because I always do when I get a message from him always hoping [it’s Unbreakable 2], and he said, ‘I just did this film called Split, I want you to see it,’ and I was like ‘OK, I’m down with that.’ I had no idea what Split was about or anything else, and he said, ‘We’ll talk after you see it.’ So I went to the arranged screening and I called him immediately and was like, ‘OK dude does this mean what I think it means?’ and he was like, ‘Well first we gotta see how the movie does’. And I think the movie’s done well enough now to merit the ‘OK, let’s put this together.’”
“I think he’s an adequate foe for what Bruce’s Unbreakable character is in terms of him being sort of unbreakable too in that kind of way, and me having found now—fuck, that would be two people that Elijah would look at and go, ‘Why are they so this and I’m so this on this end of the spectrum?’ It’s just a matter of breaking my ass out of wherever that mental institution was they had me locked up and let’s get it on, let’s see what happens!”
I think the commendable thing here is how well Jackson remembers the films and characters he’s played over his career. He’s proven it on Kimmel and the man knows exactly where Mr. Glass is locked up.
It wouldn’t mean as much if it wasn’t Sam Jackson. He’s starring in at least eighteen films per year and remembers each one like they’re his children. Let him do any movie he pleases, especially Nick Fury. They let David Hasselhoff run his own film, it’s the least that could happen.
(Via Collider / We Got This Covered)