One of the most iconic moments of the original Iron Man was actually one of the shortest sequences, which was a post-credits sequence in which Samuel L. Jackson emerged from the shadows of Tony Stark’s apartment to reveal himself as Nick Fury, teasing his plans for the Avengers Initiative. What audiences saw in that post-credits scene was just one version of the reveal, with director Jon Favreau revealing that there was an alternate version of the scene, which more fully embraced Jackson’s legacy of being an intimidating figure known to toss around four-letter words freely. You can check out the post-credits outtake in the below video, which starts at 13:49.
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While appearing on Jimmy Kimmel Live!, Favreau revealed the version of the scene that he filmed for himself that was never meant to see the light of day, in which Jackson responds to Tony Stark, “Nick Fury, mother f-cker.”
“The way it works is Iron Man, in the end, just walks into his living room after the credits and he gets surprised by Nick Fury being there inviting him to join the Avengers Initiative,” Favreau detailed of the scene. “That kind of kicks off the whole sequencing that happens.”
He confirmed, “I knew it wasn’t gonna be in the movie.”
Favreau himself seems taken aback when host Kimmel reveals that they had the footage, which hadn’t been released in an official capacity, likely because this explicit version didn’t entirely fall in line with Marvel Studios’ image.
“Where did you find this?” Favreau questioned. “This is real, by the way. This isn’t a joke. We really filmed this just for fun.”
While Fury’s reveal took many audiences by surprise and left them perplexed, it made perfect sense to other audiences. Thanks to the comic book series The Ultimates, a series which aimed to reinvent the world of Marvel to become more accessible to casual fans, Nick Fury was redesigned and modeled after Jackson himself, which immediately helped unfamiliar readers get a sense of Fury as a character. For readers familiar with that version of Nick Fury, we immediately recognized what the implication would be for the franchise, ultimately kicking off the Marvel Cinematic Universe and establishing the tradition of the MCU incorporating post-credits scenes.
“I’m a fan of Sam Jackson’s not just from Star Wars and this was before Marvel, but from his [Quentin] Tarantino films, his independent film days, so it was just a blast to have him there — the eyepatch, the leather jacket — and just having him on the set,” Favreau recalled of filming.
Samuel L. Jackson will return to the MCU for the upcoming Secret Invasion series.
Are you looking forward to Jackson’s return to the franchise? Let us know in the comments!
