How Samuel L. Jackson Expanded the Role of MCU Fan Favourite

It’s hard to argue with the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s success and it can be owed to a lot of different people. But it’s easy to forget that a lot of what happened and what worked so well came from the business end of Hollywood. Take for example Clark Gregg. He got himself a brief speaking role in Iron Man as an agent from the “Strategic Homeland Intervention, Enforcement and Logistics Division” which was given the acronym SHIELD by his appearance in Iron Man 2. It seemed as though that would be the end of the character from there but Zack Stentz recently revealed on the Kevin Smith podcast ‘Fatman on Batman’ that his role was expanded thanks to Samuel L. Jackson and his negotiations;

And then they’re like ‘Well, you can have S.H.I.E.L.D., but Sam Jackson’s holding us up in negotiations so we don’t know if we can have Nick Fury. And we’re like ‘Well, how about that Clark Gregg guy from the first Iron Man, he was great and he popped! Can we have Coulson?’ And they’re like ‘Coulson, Coulson, Coulson… oh him! Yeah, you can have him.’… They ended up giving him a bigger role in Iron Man 2 because they liked how he was popping in Thor. Clark Gregg actually sent us t-shirts as a thank you.

Thankfully we still got Samuel L. Jackson as Nick Fury in addition to Coulson so that is a win/win for all of us if you ask me. The rest of course, as they say, is history and we now know just how big Coulson’s role in the MCU is and continues to be in the ABC show ‘Marvel’s Agents of SHIELD’. Clark Gregg is clearly loving every minute and when a fan like that makes it, it inspired hope in all of us!

Source: Fatman on Batman

Tommy Terry-Green

Tommy Terry-Green

Tommy is a Staff Writer at Heroic Hollywood from London, UK. He also co-founded GEEKSPACE and writes for Generation Comics.