Along with finally introducing Brie Larson's Carol Danvers into the Marvel Cinematic Universe, Captain Marvel is fulfilling another useful service by including Nick Fury. For years Fury has been an important player in this continuity, but little has been revealed about his past. Captain Marvel will pull back the curtain a little bit when it peeks in on Fury in the mid-1990s when he was still at S.H.I.E.L.D., and as you can see in the below picture, the movie did a great job de-aging Samuel L. Jackson.
Marvel has shown off its skills with digital de-aging with Ant-Man, Captain America: Civil War, Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 and Ant-Man and the Wasp, but those were just for flashbacks. Captain Marvel marks the first time that the digital de-aging process is being done for an entire movie, as longtime players Nick Fury and Phil Coulson are among the main cast. Samuel L. Jackson has aged gracefully on his own, but looking at the above picture that the actor shared on his Instagram page, it looks like that could have been grabbed from one of his 1990s movies, like Patriot Games or Die Hard with a Vengeance.
Of course, the other big takeaway from this Captain Marvel picture is that Nick Fury still has two working eyes at this stage of his life, though I suspect that will change by the end of the movie, and that cut above his right eye makes makes for some on-the-nose (on-the-eye?) foreshadowing. As Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige previously revealed, Captain Marvel drops in on Fury's life when he believes the best days of his life are over due to the Cold War having wrapped up. He hasn't had any experience with superheroes or aliens yet, but once he crosses paths with Carol Danvers, his life will be forever changed, marking his first step towards becoming the man responsible for bringing the Avengers together.
Although much of Captain Marvel will be set in outer space, with Carol Danvers and her Kree allies batting the shapeshifting Skrulls, a fair amount of the action will take place on Earth, resulting in Nick Fury, Phil Coulson (who's the new guy at S.H.I.E.L.D.) and other humans getting drawn into the craziness. It was also revealed today that Ben Mendelsohn's Skrull character, Talos, has infiltrated S.H.I.E.L.D. in the movie, so perhaps he's the one responsible for Fury's eye injury. And, of course, I'd be remiss if I didn't mention that Captain Marvel will almost certainly explain how Fury got that spruced-up pager he used to contact Carol before being dusted at the end of Avengers: Infinity War.
Captain Marvel hits theaters on March 8, 2019, so stay tuned to CinemaBlend for continuing coverage. In the meantime, look through our Marvel movies guide to find out what else is coming down the MCU pipeline.
