The only reason Samuel L Jackson wanted to be in ‘Indiana Jones’
The majority of actors who rack up hundreds upon hundreds of credits tend to fall deeper into the realms of quantity over quality as time goes by, but Samuel L Jackson is one of the rare few to have found the ideal balance of both.
The veteran star absolutely adores his profession, which is why he’s notched upwards of 200 entries in his filmography. However, he also happens to be one of the most consistent, popular, and widely recognised talents of his or any other generation, ensuring that scripts for major projects keep on rolling in.
As a result, he’s been enshrined in Hollywood history as the single highest-grossing actor of all time, with his combined back catalogue notching upwards of $27 billion at the global box office. That doesn’t make him the top-earning on-camera performer there’s ever been, though, with Stan Lee holding that particular accolade. Of course, it was the Marvel Cinematic Universe that propelled them both to such unprecedented heights, putting Jackson over $10 billion ahead of his nearest competition in terms of cumulative ticket sales in the process.
That wasn’t always the case, with Jackson at one time engaged in a head-to-head battle with Harrison Ford to see who could rack up the biggest totals. However, whereas all of the latter’s biggest hits hailed from either the Star Wars or Indiana Jones franchises, Jackson had mega-hits, including Jurassic Park, The Incredibles, Die Hard with a Vengeance, and his own forays into a galaxy far, far away to draw upon.
At the height of his desire to be number one, Jackson even admitted at the time that he was angling for a cameo appearance in the next Indiana Jones adventure, which turned out to be the wildly divisive Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, with George Lucas egging him on: “George said, ‘Well, if you want to stay in front of Harrison then we’ve got to figure out a way to get you in.”
Joking that “he won’t return my calls” when he sought to take his Star Wars director up on the offer, Jackson even outlined the terms and conditions of his involvement, which would prove to be minimal: “All I want to do is run across screen, I don’t have to say anything,” he continued. “I just want to run through the movie, get my name in the credits, so I can stay in front of Harrison.”
Since Kingdom of the Crystal Skull was released, Jackson has absolutely sprinted away with the crown, a fitting coincidence considering the long-awaited fourth Indiana Jones blockbuster released the very same summer as Iron Man. Since then, Ford has only appeared in two billion-dollar movies after reprising his role as Han Solo in The Force Awakens and The Rise of Skywalker, whereas Jackson’s recurring gig as the MCU’s Nick Fury has seen him show up in six.
