Marvel Sets Up "New" Nick Fury Amid Shock 'Captain Marvel' Recasting

As Marvel gears up for the release of its next Phase Five blockbuster, The Marvels (2023), it sounds like audiences can expect to see a very different version of Samuel L. Jackson’s Nick Fury—which could either be very good or very bad news for the future of the MCU.

Coming fresh off the Disney+ Secret Invasion show, director Ali Selim is making some pretty sweeping statements on how it will impact the MCU and, particularly, its leading man: former S.H.I.E.L.D. director Nick Fury.

Secret Invasion just wrapped up its six-episode run on the streaming platform last month, and it’s safe to say it went out not with a bang but a whimper. The series was far from the smash hit Marvel surely expected it to be, failing to strike much of a chord with audiences for its tediously slow pacing, uninteresting villain setup, and highly-divisive retcons of the MCU’s widely-loved Infinity Saga. Following its finale, Secret Invasion earned the unfortunate title of Marvel’s worst-rated Disney+ project of all time.

Still, the show had its moments, with Jackson’s Fury being an unquestionable highlight of the MCU since Iron Man (2008). Don Cheadle’s Colonel James “Rhodey” Rhodes, Olivia Colman’s MI6 Agent Sonya Falsworth, Ben Mendelsohn’s Talos, and Emilia Clarke’s Giah all turned in great performances as well. Still, not even its all-star cast could salvage Secret Invasion‘s unjustifiably convoluted story.

But even though fans weren’t exactly impressed with Secret Invasion, it looks like the series will have some significant ramifications for the future of the MCU. Speaking with Marvel, Selim explained how Secret Invasion shaped “the new Nick Fury” ahead of his big-screen return in The Marvels, pointing to the show’s character-centric story that helped build Fury’s interpersonal relationships.

Interestingly enough, Selim mostly ditched the “superhero” genre label for Secret Invasion, describing it as “a big love story,” not only in terms of Fury’s relationship with his Skrull wife, Priscilla (Charlayne Woodard), but also in him “exploring his love for a lot of people:”

I don’t think it’s a little bit of a love story. I think it’s a big love story. And I think it’s Nick exploring his love for a lot of people. The most challenging one is the fact that he fell in love and married a Skrull and battling his sense of other, living as a Black man in America and living as an aging man in a more fit world. I think he’s constantly exploring that sense of other and dealing with this love story that he’s never quite reconciled.

As viewers know, Secret Invasion picks up post-Blip and follows an understandably rattled Fury attempting to come to terms with the horrors he’s experienced in the wake of Avengers: Endgame (2019). This more cowardly, fearful Fury flees to space to avoid dealing with his problems on Earth, where it’s revealed that he is, in fact, a married man and, despite his hard exterior, has a very real human side just like everyone else.

According to Selim, focusing on Nick Fury’s marriage was, to him, “the story,” which might explain why audiences had some problems with this more grounded story and its lack of high-stakes action sequences:

That, to me, was the story. He had to reconcile that love story, either by leaving her, as he almost does in Episode 6 when he picks up the broken vase, or reuniting with her, confronting it all, and kissing the Skrull, not the woman, or the human.

And with Fury set to have a leading role in The Marvels, the director also shared how Secret Invasion‘s events culminated in a “new” version of Nick Fury who “can do stronger and greater things” aside from beating bad guys and calling on the Avengers:

I thought that was very important for him to come to that point where he understands where he is in the world now and what he needs to be to continue to be the new Nick Fury and to send him off a little sense of: ‘I’ve reconciled that. Now I can do stronger and greater things.’

For Fury, this meant having some meaning conversations between Jackson and Selim, who “talked a lot about aging” and how “living through the blip” affected the S.H.I.E.L.D. Director’s mental health:

Sam and I talked a lot about aging and worrying that you’re losing your step or being told. And he has many points in this show that he’s losing his step, living through the blip, which, in many ways, was very much like the pandemic for a lot of us, where we just disappeared and came back different and disoriented. We had a lot of conversations about Sam’s life, how he felt as an aging man, and as a man who grew up in the very volatile times that he grew up, and how that informed Nick Fury.

The end result was an older and wiser take on Fury, who’s “getting his mojo back” or “finding his new strength:”

And is it a story about him getting his mojo back? Or is it a story about him finding purpose at this point in his life and finding his new strength at this point in his life? I think it’s a little bit of both.

The upcoming Captain Marvel (2019) sequel will see Jackson’s character reuniting with Carol Danvers (Brie Larson) as she, Ms. Marvel‘s Kamala Khan (Iman Vellani), and WandaVision‘s Monica Rambeau (Teyonah Parris) are forced to work together after their light-based powers are mysteriously intertwined. While it’s unclear just how big of a role Fury will play in the story, he did feature somewhat prominently in the recent trailer.

This “new” take on Fury won’t be the only big change audiences can expect to see in The Marvels either. Soren, the Skrull married to Talos and the mother of G’iah, was initially played by Sharon Blynn, who also appears in Spider-Man: Far From Home (2019) and Captain Marvel. Oddly enough, Soren was killed offscreen in Secret Invasion but still appears with Kate Braithwaite and Charlotte Baker taking over in Episode 2. For some reason, Braithwaite only appears as the Skrull, while Baker appears as the disguised woman in the series. Now, with Talos dead, it’ll be interesting to see if G’iah might pop up in The Marvels, perhaps, seeking Fury’s help as the Skrulls continue to search for a new home, if not Earth.

Seeing a wiser, more self-actualized version of Fury in The Marvels signifies some major growth from the hot-headed, “no-BS” agent we first met in the early days of the MCU. But for now, the importance of that arc in The Marvels remains to be seen. Either way, Marvel’s Disney+ shows would certainly benefit from similar narratives—just as long as they balance them with enough action to keep viewers hooked.

The Marvels flies into theaters on November 10, 2023.

What do you think of this “new” Nick Fury? Share your thoughts in the comments below.