"Given what Jackson's been willing to star in over the last few years, I doubt he even cares."

And that my friend says it all.

I'd imagine their keeping the option of going for Ironman 3, Avengers 2 & 3 and perhaps Hulk 2. So that's 4 more flicks.

Nine films?!? Thats a lot! Basically, Sam Jackson just signed on to be Marvels bitch. They must be planning on sticking him in everything they make from now on.

Which is still better than Snakes on a Plane...

Nobody gives a fig about Samuel L. Jackson, the bourgeois talk-show habitue who shucks and jives with Jay Leno anymore. His sheen of cool started dissapating awhile back. So devoting the latter part of his career to running around in superhero flicks is wholly appropriate.

Here's a sincere hope that Mickey Rourke DOESN'T end up in a Marvel movie, playing some silly cardboard character. I like these Marvel adapations as much as the next Elder Nerd, but that doesn't mean I wanna see every talented, serious actor out there decide to go slumming for $$ and the -- LOL --Comic-Con publicity ...

If you read this Variety article. it says he'll be doing a movie called "The Shield", which is Variety's way of saying "We're stupid morons who only know existing TV and film properties, and refuse to do any research. Oh, and we meant S.H.I.E.L.D."

http://www.variety.com/article/VR1118000573.html?categoryid=13&cs=1&nid=2562

@Dacalicious: Being in a superhero movie is "slumming" and "not cool"? That's a pretty harsh generalization. And how can you claim to like "Iron Man" and then bash an actor for being in the sequel? While he is talented, calling Rourke a serious actor is a bit much, considering that he was in "Once Upon a Time in Mexico" with his chihuahua and basically quit Hollywood to be a part-time boxer for a while. And did you see Iron Man? It was actually a very good movie, with few cardboard characters, if any. Robert Downey Jr. is seriously talented, but he doesn't take himself seriously. And given its box office, plenty of people liked it who weren't Elder Nerds. Stop compartmentalizing my fucking genre.

Thank you Topless Robot!! You have made my day. After Iron Man/Hulk and the surrounding buzz of Avengers movies and such to come out in the next few years I have been very excited for Marvel movies. So when I saw your last article about him not being on because Marvel had a stick up their ass or some such thing I was pretty pissed. Now all is right with the world again.

I bet that Ant-Man will indeed be involved with the avengers movie. He's been with the Avengers a lot, especially in the Ultimate Universe, and we're using Ultimate Nick Fury, so I can only assume he will be involved.

I'm glad about this. I was at first against Sam Jackson as the Ultimate version of Fury because I was afraid they would just turn the character into Shaft with an eyepatch-but after seeing his cameo In Iron Man I'm convinced it can be done in a way that makes all the Fury fans happy. As long as Fury doesnt start yelling and screaming and calling people mother$#%&*#@ while bitching about Hydras on a plane,this should be good.....

"There's too many mother f$%#ing Serpent Society members on this motherf$%#ing plane!"

And then he gets eaten by Tiger Shark.

Zach Oat -- IRON MAN is wonderful entertainment but it's fluff. Outstanding, state of the art fluff, but fluff. Tony Stark IS a cardboard character that was created to entertain children. Despite Smilin' Stan's propensity for outrageous alliteration, he was writing funnybooks for kids. Shakespeare for pre-adolescents.

& while we've now got THE DARK KNIGHT, which strove mightily to unearth Freudian depths in characters created by a couple of high-school kids to entertain other youth during the Depression, & WATCHMEN, based on an exercise in transplanting the 20th-century "superhero" archetype into some kind of "real world" setting, IRON MAN is nothing but the equivalent of a modern-day THREE MUSKETEERS, etc. Which is absolutely fine. That doesn't "marginalize" it. It just recognizes it for what it is: artful entertainment, not art. I LOVED the flick, but it hardly made me think. There's a reason that nobody even thought to put R. Downey up for an Oscar (besides the fact he failed to fatally OD after the movie was complete). The role just isn't that demanding or three-dimensional.

If anything, actual risk-taking, thoughtful, adult "art" is what's marginalized, now more than ever. This IS the era of comic-book tropes mainstreamed, in order to mollify an ever-more illiterate, easily-bored mainstream audience. Not that I'm complaining. I, for one, would just love to see THE AVENGERS done in a way that tickle the child within me. So to speak.

"Latverian, motherfucker! Do you speak it?"

Yup, it's official Sam Jackson IS the Marvel's Hayley Mills or (young) Kurt Russel! At least he won't have to be a shaggy dog or a guy with a computer brain!

ZeroCorpse wins comment of the week.

dacalicious,

Thanks for posting a thoughtful response. They are all too rare these days. (That is not a rag on anyone else on this thread, just a comment on the general lack of thoughtfulness or civility on message boards these days).

People may disagree on subjects, and I'm glad there can still be informed discussions instead of put down fests.

I can see Fury being in a Thor after-credits scene. The whole movie could be in Asgard (which I hope), and after the ending credits, it cuts to a SHIELD observation center where Fury's been watching what's going on or something. Would it fit the rest of the Thor movie? Probably not, but it's after the credits and most people are gone anyway.

Dacalicious, did you think that I said you were marginalizing superhero movies? I never said that, nor does one man have that power. I said you were making generalities and putting superhero movies in a single category, one that Mickey Rourke is apparently too good for and Samuel Jackson deserves as some kind of punishment for past sins.

I pointed out that Mickey Rourke is not some sort of precious natural resource that needs protecting, especially from material that you kindly put on a level with The Three Musketeers. (Where were you when he made Wild Orchid?) Serious actors do fluff all the time -- if they didn't, they would get bored and starve. Because while you claim art films are marginalized, it seems like every Oscar season there are a dozen I haven't seen. Hell, most indie films are art films purely for budgetary reasons.

And you need to actually read a comic book. Yes, Iron Man was a concept created to entertain children, but comic books haven't been written for children for years, and most of today's superhero films I wouldn't even let my children watch. But they're still worthy of recognition and can generate brilliant, thought-provoking performances -- I would argue that many of these roles are harder to play than real people, which may be why there are so many bad performances in comic-book movies.

If you like superhero movies so much, wouldn't you want a talented actor to play a role in one, if only to elevate it to a level where you will hopefully no longer be ashamed to like it? You want an Avengers movie that will make you feel like a kid, but as a kid you were being exposed to new ideas in every comic you read and getting real emotion from the characters. If you want a movie that will do the same, it needs to step up its game.

And if Downey's Tony Stark is a cardboard character, you must be used to some heavy, 4-ply, corrugated, refrigerator-box shit, because that shit is solid. Word.

And I'd rather see Jackson making Marvel films than crap like the Spirit.

Yay! Marvel signed a 61 year old man to play a bad ass in all their movies!

Hell, Yeah!!!

I just hope Sam will FUCKING swear in these films! That's music to my ears!

Make it happen, Marvel!

Hooray for Jackson signing on!

Now to something off-topic; I wonder if one of the 9 films will be a Hawkeye one. It wouldn't surprise me if Marvel wanted to get Hawkeye out before Green Arrow.

Oh, and if Ghost Rider 2 does get made, Jackson could totally show up in that.

Zach, I still read comics quite a bit. But most of the public doesn't. The movie versions that go over well are those that are based on the original conceptions, not Mark Millar or Geoff Johns' attempts to make them into more sophisticated, mature narratives. & frankly, most of what they do raises the bar from The Three Musketeers to, oh say, The Outsiders. (& not the comic series!)

Tony Stark, in the movie, is a playboy genius billionaire who decides to get serious about life when he's nearly blown to bits by his own munitions. So he builds a robotic suit to gambol about in, when he's not staving off a corporate takeover by a mad-scientist old friend of the family. He's hardly Hamlet. & in the comics, despite his alcoholism or whatever complications he gets saddled with, he's not really a "character." He's a property. He can't truly change or evolve. Whatever happens to him, you know Marvel -- or this year's writer -- is going to hit the reset button, as they & DC will always do with their superhero icons, because that's what they are. Iconic, mythic creations, but not sophisticated, realistic characters. I mean, how many times can Electkra (among others) die & come back?

& even in the comics, the likes of Johns, Millar, Neil Gaiman & Alan Moore's work for the last 15 years, etc, is hardly the equal of Joyce Carol Oates, John Irving, Norman Mailer, whomever. They're still funnybooks, even if they have extra dollops of sex and violence. I mean, Denny O'Neil was doing it with Batman, Green Lantern/GL, etc, in the early '70s.

& I am fine with talented actors like Downey, Michael Chiklis or the twit now playing Bruce Banner taking fun, easy fluff between more serious roles. But it's coasting on their parts, I seriously doubt any of them would claim it's challenging material (beyond the physical challenges).

But as for Jackson, his sins are hardly in the past, but ongoing. Unfortunately, what's in the past are any & all of his truly memorable or convincing roles. Name ONE role he's had in the last ten years that he didn't shtick his way through. The man's a total whore & a joke, a talkshow racounteur (sp, sorry) who would dress up in a rabbit suit and play Bugs Bunny if you dangled enough do-re-mei in front of him. "Yeah! A BAD-ASS Bugs Bunny!" LOL.

Jackson has sold out whatever persona he once enjoyed for the sake of being a "movie star" instead of an actor. He has frittered away his gravitas, and at this point will be as "bad-ass" as Nick Fury as Adam West was as Batman.

BTW, I'm flummoxed with the logic that most indie films are art films for budgetary reasons. Genre & exploitation films, prior to our bizarre modern-day turn of events, have always been notoriously cheap and disposable. IRON MAN is, ultimately, certainly not cheap, but certainly disposable. But I don't mean that as an insult.

What I'm saying it doesn't reward multiple viewings with more layers, or additional insights into the characters or the story's point. It's simple shit, purely escapist entertainment. Not to beat the dead wookie, but though there's nothing wrong with that, and a lot glorious when it's done right, it's ultimately sweet but empty calories. A Butterfingers bar does not have the same nutrition as a nice steak and some asparagus tips. (mmm, Asparagus tips!)

I do appreciate your reponses, & it is fun to debate!

You're right, dacalicious, it is fun to debate. But I'm ending this debate, because you used the phrase "LOL," and I'm pretty sure that's against the international rules of debate. Also, you're generalizing again. You can't hold up Elektra and say "Look at how bad comic books are!" You aren't listening to what I'm saying, and you keep using your responses to talk about how comic book movies are not as worthy of recognition as "real" movies.

I'm not saying "Iron Man" is a more sophisticated movie than "the Wrestler", I'm saying it has a place in the world of cinema, and that movies like "The Wrestler" are in no danger from them. And if you're going to criticize Mickey Rourke for being in one, and Sam Jackson for making the best career move he's made in years (I never defended his career choices, by the way), then you are selling your brand of intellectual superiority on the wrong message boards. Everyone here is excited about Rourke's involvement, and thrilled that Jackson is on board.

And I meant "indie" more as a thinkpiece genre than a low-budget filmmaking route. You can qualify "indie" with "horror" or "comedy" or "sci-fi" or what have you, but everyone knows what I mean when I say "indie" -- and it's true, most thinkpieces, even the ones at the big studios, don't get the budgets of their action-film counterparts. Although if they did, you would probably call them "fluff" anyway. Because special effects are apparently a replacement for sophistication, according to your logic.

Thank you Marvel.