David Goyer Sets the Record Straight on His Nick Fury, Agent of SHIELD Movie

Before there was Samuel L. Jackson’s Nick Fury, spymaster and statesman of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, there was Nick Fury, Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. Television’s Knight Rider and Baywatch star David Hasselhoff played the eye-patched super-spy in Marvel Entertainment and 20th Century Fox Television’s 1998 TV movie adaptation of the espionage comic book. Originally planned to launch a Hasselhoff-led television series, the pilot telefilm featured the first live-action Nick Fury — billed as “the last superhero” — and was among the earliest of screenwriter David S. Goyer’s entries in the comic book movie genre. 

“Sometimes people will give [Nick Fury] as a credit or cite that as an example of my not being a good screenwriter,” Goyer told the Happy Sad Confused podcast. Before Goyer wrote the bloody, R-rated Blade 1998— Marvel’s first box office success — Fox Broadcasting bought projects from New World Pictures, a producer and distributor of low-budget films, which acquired Marvel Comics in 1986. Originally dated for 1996, the rebranded New World Entertainment put Nick Fury, Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. into motion with an initial budget of $15 million, according to Goyer. 

“I wrote a script, [but] that whole thing went away,” Goyer said. Years later, “They said, ‘We’re going to do it as a TV movie at Fox, for like three million dollars with David Hasselhoff — taking nothing away from David Hasselhoff.” Asked if he would rewrite the now made-for-TV movie, Goyer recalled, “I was like, ‘No. I don’t want any involvement with it, no. Goodbye.’ It was rewritten by God-knows-whom, or how many people, and then there it is.”

Goyer went on to write the Blade trilogy, Batman Begins, Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance, Man of Steel, and Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, with story credits on The Dark Knight and The Dark Knight Rises. While Goyer is the solely-credited screenwriter on Nick Fury, Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D., Robert Megginson (F/X: The Series) went uncredited for on-set revisions, according to author and Hollywood historian Andy Mangels. 

“I wasn’t on the set of Nick Fury at all. I wrote the scripta few years before the telefilm was shot,” Goyer said in a 2000 interview. “At the time it did shoot, I wasrunning my own short-lived series, Sleepwalkers. I was also initiallyunenthused about Hasselhoff’s involvement. I think the film was pretty mediocre — butHasselhoff turned out to be the best thing in it.”

Goyer explained: “He got the joke. The scriptwas meant to be very tongue in cheek and Hasselhoff understood that.”