The director Samuel L Jackson pursued for years: “Can I do one of your movies?”
Fittingly for a guy who has played super spy Nick Fury in 11 Marvel Cinematic Universe movies and one spinoff TV series, Samuel L Jackson has always been a die-hard fan of comic books. In fact, his fandom of comics informed his career long before he donned Fury’s eye-patch. It can be seen in his Elijah Price/Mr Glass character in M Night Shyamalan’s Unbreakable, whose comic book fandom drives him to murder; his hilarious voice performance as Frozone in The Incredibles; and his decision to play the villain in Kingsman: The Secret Service, based on an ultraviolent independent comic.
However, perhaps the most prominent example of Jackson’s devotion to comics is his campy role in a commercial disaster that was released the same year he played Nick Fury for the first time. In the preceding years, Jackson had watched as Sin City and 300 both became substantial hits at the box office.
Robert Rodriguez’s over-the-top film noir homage and Zack Snyder’s epic historical action movie were both shot using revolutionary digital techniques in which computer-generated backgrounds augmented minimal sets. They were also based on comics written and drawn by Frank Miller, an undisputed comic book industry legend.
In terms of a comic book creator’s impact on the modern industry and the cinematic landscape, few can argue to have wielded greater influence than Miller. His iconic Batman series’ Year One and The Dark Knight Returns were hallowed texts when creating Batman Begins and Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, while his seminal 1980s Daredevil run informed both the Ben Affleck movie and the Netflix/Disney+ TV shows. Sin City and 300 were examples of his ‘creator-owned’ comics, meaning they were created whole cloth by Miller and published by companies outside the traditional top two of Marvel and DC.
Any comics devotee from the last four decades will likely have read at least one of Miller’s masterworks, and Jackson is no different. In fact, when he watched Sin City and 300, he became jealous that other stars had gotten the chance to work on a Miller adaptation before him. So, he did what he needed to do and began pursuing a part in the next Miller motion picture – whatever that would be.
“I’ve been chasing Frank Miller’s work for a while,” Jackson told Total Film magazine in 2009. “Even before people knew what Sin City was, I was kind of aware of it, and was trying to track him down and ask, ‘Can I do one of your movies?’ Then they made Sin City and all those other movies from his work, and I was disappointed I wasn’t in them.”
As fate would have it, Jackson didn’t have to chase Miller down for long. “Out of nowhere, I got a call saying, ‘Frank’s doing The Spirit, and he wants to talk to you about it.'” Once again, Jackson’s comic book bona fides came through, as he knew The Spirit was a classic crimefighter created by comics legend Will Eisner in 1940. Jackson even knew about the hero’s arch-nemesis, ‘The Octopus,’ the role Miller wanted him to play, and that prompted him to do some soul-searching.
“I knew the story, and I was like, ‘Um, he wants me to be The Octopus, and in the graphic novel, that guy is just a pair of gloves,'” Jackson said. He wondered if Miller simply wanted him to do voice work on the film, which disappointed him, but then Miller put all his worries to bed. “Frank said, ‘Hell no, I want to see you on screen!'” Jackson grinned, “and after that, I was like, ‘OK, I’m on board.'”
Unfortunately for Jackson, the Miller movie he signed up for was the only dud in the bunch. It died at the box office, despite co-starring a pre-Black Widow Scarlett Johansson, and was torn apart by critics. In truth, Miller might have been an expert at comics, but he was extremely inexperienced as a director, and it showed. None of that mattered to Jackson, though, who insisted he had a great time working with the helmer he’d spent years chasing.
