Here’s an excerpt from a Collider interview with Iron Man 3 director Shane Black and Kevin Feige (President of Production at Marvel Studios), that I thought was worth sharing on an extremely slow news day…
Collider: Are there other characters that Marvel has that you have an affinity for? A lot of us are wondering when maybe Marvel might make an R-rated movie and that might be where you could use some of the “blue material”. I’m just curious if you have an affinity for other characters.
Shane Black: I don’t know I always thought that certain characters could be adapted in a cool way. I wanted to do… Quentin Tarantino kind of poisoned the well with Django… but I always thought there was a 1970’s version of Black Panther, which was [a] period that could be really cool and involved a lot of the racial tensions of that time. That’s not going to happen. Other Marvel movies that I really loved, or marvel comics growing up, God, mostly just the typical ones. “Nick Fury Agent of Shield” the Strenko years. But you can’t do them because Sam Jackson is 60 years old and he plays this sort of patriarchal figure now, but Nick Fury was what I adored growing up. If you ever read the ones [Jim] Sterenko did for “Tales of Suspense” followed by “Nick Fury” standalone 1-8, some of the best comics ever made.
I don’t know about you, but I’d be up for a 1970s-set Black Panther. Although I think a 1970s Luke Cage would be cool too. But neither is happening! And even if Tarantino hadn’t “poisoned the well” as he states, I doubt that Marvel would ever go for an R-rated Black Panther movie. They’d have to first actually want to make a Black Panther movie, and that’s not something that I’m certain they want to do.
We’ve already talked about the potential for a Black Panther movie to death, and, as I said in a previous post, I’ve pretty much given up expecting one to happen anytime soon, if at all. Marvel will probably explore every other superhero in its library on film, before we see standalone movies with any of its key black superheroes. Or they’ll be supporting/peripheral characters in movies about other non-Black Marvel superheroes.
As for a Nick Fury movie with Samuel L. Jackson, I don’t think that’ll ever happen either. Not only because of Samuel L. Jackson’s age, but I just never liked him for the part in the first place, and can’t see a standalone movie with him as the title character.
But if not a live-action black superhero film from Marvel, maybe enough money can be raised to bring Dwayne McDuffie’s/Milestone Media’s creations to life.
