You’ll be seeing more of it. A lot more. In fact, if you plan on seeing any Marvel movie over the next decade, chances are that at some point Samuel L Jackson is going to walk on as Nick Fury, waggle his good eye around and bugger off again.

Because Marvel has just signed Samuel L Jackson up for nine movies – including Iron Man 2, Thor, Thor 2, Captain America and the long-awaited Nick Fury Sings The Hits Of Genesis.

Depending on how much of a geek you are, Samuel L Jackson’s surprise post-credits cameo as Nick Fury in Iron Man probably sparked one of the following reactions:

1 - “Oh cool, this means that S.H.I.E.L.D is going to play an important role in the tapestry of all future Marvel films!”

2 - “That’s not Nick Fury. He doesn’t even look anything like David Hasselhoff.”

3 - “What’s going on? I don’t know why I even bothered sitting through the poxy credits. I need a wee and one of my legs has gone to sleep. Oh, I hate this life.”

We won’t tell you which one of these was our reaction (Clue: the third one), but Samuel L Jackson went down so well as Nick Fury in Iron Man that Marvel has signed him up to do more of them. Nine more of them, in fact. Reuters reports:

The actor, who just weeks ago was seemingly on the outs with the studio over reprising his role as Nick Fury, agent of spy outfit S.H.I.E.L.D., in the “Iron Man” sequel, has signed an unprecedented nine-picture deal to play the character in a series of Marvel movies. In addition to “Iron Man 2,” scheduled for release next year, the movies include “Thor,” “Captain America,” “The Avengers” and its sequels.

We don’t know whether to be happy or sad for Samuel L Jackson. Given Marvel’s taste for cannibalistic incest, there’s a chance that he’ll end up in more than nine films – getting to star in far-off gems such as Thor 2, Thor 3, Captain America 2, Captain America 3, Thor Vs Captain America, Thor And Captain America Vs Iron Man, Iron Man Vs The Avengers, The Avengers Vs The Bavengers and Thor Gives Iron Man A Sneaky Hand-Job While Iron Man Is Away At A Conference.

Plus there’s a chance that, if all goes well, Samuel L Jackson will end up being given his own S.H.I.E.L.D movie, and that’s bound to excite everyone interested in seeing the day-to-day administrative chores of a large organisation thrillingly played out on the big screen.

But, on the other hand, we don’t think Samuel L Jackson should get his feet too far under the table just yet. It might be an uninformed hunch, but we do have a ‘Samuel L Jackson To Be Replaced By Don Cheadle‘ post loitering around that we don’t think will stay unpublished for very long, if you know what we mean.

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Whether it’s an indie darling like Jon Favreau directing Iron Man, a theatrical powerhouse like Kenneth Branagh helming Thor or a thrilling young up-and-comer like Louis Leterrier taking on The Incredible Hulk, Marvel has always managed to impress. So, with that in mind, who has Marvel signed on to direct Captain America, one of the most iconic characters in its stable?

Joe Johnston. Come on, you know, Joe Johnston. The man who directed Jurassic Park III. And, um, The Rocketeer. Oh, you know him. He wrote one episode of the Star Wars Droids cartoon spin-off in 1895. Joe Johnston, you know. Old Joey Jo-Jo Johnston. This Captain America film is going to freaking rule.

Aspiring superhero movie directors, listen up. We’ve worked something out that we think you should probably know. if you want to get Marvel’s attention, you should think about making a film about a magical board game.

We’re being serious. Why did Marvel pick Jon Favreau to direct Iron Man? Because of his work on Zathura: A Space Adventure. And why has Marvel picked Joe Johnston to direct Captain America? Because of his work on Jumanji. And it’s fairly obvious that Kenneth Branagh was asked to direct Thor because of his bleak directorial masterpiece Gooey Louie: The Motion Picture.

But, look, that’s not the point. The point is that Marvel has signed Joe Johnston to direct its upcoming First Avenger: Captain America movie. Why? Because between Terrence Howard and Edward Norton Marvel has realised that big stars also come with big fees and unmanageably big egos? No, not at all – it’s just that everyone at Marvel thinks that Jurassic Park III is the best Jurassic Park film, even better than the ones that made much more money and got much better reviews. Ahem. Reuters reports:

“Jurassic Park III” director Joe Johnston has signed a deal to bring the Marvel comic-book hero Captain America to the big screen. “First Avenger: Captain America,” a World War II-set movie, is scheduled for release in 2011 through Marvel Studios. No writers are on board, but the studio expects to hire shortly.

Since he’s currently working on a version of The Wolfman that more or less just involves asking Benicio Del Toro to not shave for about 45 minutes and then filming the results, First Avenger: Captain America looks like it could be the biggest movie of Joe Johnston’s career.

After all, it doesn’t have a script yet and Marvel is already hyping Captain America as hard as it can. So, if that continues, there’s a chance that First Avenger: Captain America will be one of the biggest hits of 2011 in North America and the terrorist states that’ll use it to demonstrate America’s beligerant patriotism to its angry young recruits.

That just leaves the question of who’ll play Captain America. A few weeks ago Will Smith expressed an interest, but now that he’s gone off to massacre a film that we love instead, it looks like it’s wide open. It’s obvious that the role needs to be played by someone fiercely all-American, so may we suggest Eddie Izzard from The Riches? Or maybe the guy from House? Or Jimmy McNulty from The Wire. Or one of Flight Of The Conchords. Yes. Any of them please.

Or maybe that was just us. Anyway, once cameo in The Incredible Hulk that you might have missed was Captain America. Seriously. Captain America really was in The Incredible Hulk, but only if you bought the DVD and then squinted until your eyes bled for one specific millisecond during a deleted scene set in the arctic.

As Film School Rejects has discovered, you can quite clearly see Captain America buried in the snow in the picture above, taken from The Incredible Hulk. This nicely lines up the new Avengers film, because it presumably shows how Captain America fought in World War II and then got frozen in the arctic before he was brought back to life in the present day to fight evil alongside Iron-Man, The Incredible Hulk and Thor.

Unless, you know, that isn’t a picture of Captain America at all and it’s just a smudge, or a rock, or a shadow, or some penguin wee. But it isn’t. It’s definitely Captain America, Definitely.

Come to think of it, we think we saw another one of these Avengers cameos in Iron Man. At approximately the 48:22 mark, there’s a tiny movement in the bottom left hand corner of the screen. You won’t notice it unless you buy the Blu-Ray and view it frame by frame through an atomic microscope until you go mad, but it’s actually Thor performing a perfect rendition of Let’s Get Ready To Rhumble by PJ & Duncan in perfect Esperanto. Seriously, watch it. It’s not like you’ve got anything better to do with your time, is it?

Read more:

Found: Captain America in The Incredible Hulk – Film School Rejects

First he stopped jumping around like a particularly stupid chimp, he stopped going on about Scientology in public – though he did see some of his private video collection released, much to the delight/terror (delete as appropriate) of the general public – and he’s seeing some rave reviews flying about for his small role in Tropic Thunder. So what next?

Well, it’s obvious isn’t it? Star in a superhero film, and get someone like Sam Raimi on board to produce. Which is, apparently, what’s being pushed for by Tom Cruise and Warner Bros, who own the rights to Sleeper – a short running comic book series from a few years back. Well, Raimi’s already on board, but you get the point.

And you can’t fault the man’s logic.

The rumoured decision happily fits in with our theory that Hollywood is physically incapable of having an original thought, ever, ever, ever. It also fits in with the current logic that if you make a film of a comic book it will make a lot of geeks wet with anticipation, thus creating millions upon millions of dollars to line the executive’s pockets with. And we all know how much they love money over there in movieland.

Valuing cash over creativity, honesty or integrity? Say it ain’t so! Ahem.

It appears, if reports are to be believed, that the latest in the line of films the studios hope will emulate the success of Spider-Man 3 and The Dark Knight is an adaptation of Sleeper – a limited series that ran from 2003-05 from the Wildstorm Universe and written by Ed Brubaker, whose writing credits include some work on X-Men and Captain America comics, amongst many others.

It does strike us that such a smalltime comic wouldn’t be the best of the potential earners out there for the studios and actors, but hey ho – it’s their money to waste and, who knows, they might get it right.

They won’t. But, you know – we are the bastions of truth, glory and optimism in the world of the internet. Wait, what? We’re not? Ah crap, Stu isn’t going to be happy…

The connection of Tom Cruise with the project has come about through the usual web of lies/rumours that prop up countless websites across the world, though it did originate at somewhere half-decent in the shape of The Hollywood Reporter, meaning we can leave it to them to explain the finer points:

Written by Ed Brubaker with art by Sean Phillips, “Sleeper,” which ran from 2003-05, centers on an operative whose fusion with an alien artifact makes him impervious to pain and allows him to pass it on to others through skin contact. He is placed undercover in a villainous organization by an intelligence agency and falls for a member of the group, named Miss Misery.

Which sounds absolutely ideal for some big names to get attached to, a plethora of nerds to claim they read the book when it first came out (even though they picked it up off eBay on hearing the news a film was in the making) and a film to come out and get critically panned, while earning a small amount of cash.

You heard it here first.

We should also point out: superpowers afforded by the film adaptation still won’t allow Tom Cruise to keep pizzas warm using magic. Just thought we should point that out yet again.