Samuel L. Jackson Wants To Keep Playing Nick Fury As Long As Marvel Pays Him ‘Gunslinger’ Money

Samuel L. Jackson’s nine-movie contract with Marvel, which began with 2008’s Iron Man, comes to an end with Captain Marvel. He has no plans of retiring Nick Fury’s eyepatch, though. Jackson, Hollywood’s most bankable actor of all-time (his $5.7 billion is way in front of the runner-up, Harrison Ford’s $4.9 billion), is in next year’s Spider-Man: Far From Home, and the 70-year-old actor told the Hollywood Reporter that he wants to play the part until he’s in his 80s:

“I could be the Alec Guinness of Marvel movies,” he suggests. His quote has certainly gone up since he signed his original deal in 2008 (he was paid $5 million to star in 2017’s Kong: Skull Island, according to sources with knowledge of the deal, on the strength of his international appeal, and more for Glass). From here on, salary negotiations could get more interesting with the famously thrifty company. Says Jackson: “I’m a gunslinger now.”

It’s worth mentioning that Jackson landed the gig of a lifetime after cutting a deal with Marvel. Comic book writer Mark Millar modeled Nick Fury after the Jurassic Park star, and when the huge comic fan noticed the resemblance, “he called his agents, who called Marvel… which sheepishly apologized and pledged to put him in the movie adaptations, if there ever were any.” Years later, Millar confessed to “completely exploiting” the actor’s likeness and asked if he was annoyed, to which Jackson (a self-proclaimed “walking t-shirt”) responded, “F*ck no, man! Thanks for the nine-picture deal!” Classic gunslinger talk.