Samuel L. Jackson has finally cleared up one of the lingering questions around Marvel’s next two Avengers movies. Nick Fury will not appear in Avengers: Doomsday, but Jackson says he has been told he will return in the movie that follows it, Avengers: Secret Wars.
Speaking to The Direct while promoting The Beast, Jackson was asked when audiences would see Fury again. His answer was brief: “Next movie… [The] movie after this one.” He then explained that Marvel had told him, “You’re not gonna be in this movie. You’ll be in the next.”
That makes Jackson the source of the confirmation rather than an official Marvel Studios casting announcement. Marvel has not yet publicly unveiled a full Secret Wars ensemble, but Jackson’s comments make his own status unusually clear: Fury is sitting out Doomsday and being saved for the Multiverse Saga’s follow-up.
Nick Fury missing Doomsday is now settled
Jackson’s absence from Doomsday had already attracted attention because his name was missing from Marvel’s major cast announcements.
The current Doomsday lineup stretches across several corners of Marvel, with Chris Hemsworth, Anthony Mackie, Florence Pugh, Pedro Pascal, Tom Hiddleston, Patrick Stewart, Ian McKellen, Simu Liu and others involved. Robert Downey Jr. returns to the MCU in a very different role as Victor von Doom. Marvel has also continued adding or revealing characters beyond its original 2025 cast rollout, meaning absence from that first announcement alone was never proof that Fury would not appear.
Jackson has now removed that ambiguity himself.
It is a notable absence considering Fury’s place in MCU history. His appearance at the end of 2008’s Iron Man introduced the “Avengers Initiative,” helping establish the interconnected structure that eventually produced Marvel’s biggest crossover movies.
Yet the character has spent much of the post-Endgame era operating away from the Avengers themselves. Jackson led Disney+ series Secret Invasion in 2023 and also appeared that year in The Marvels, where Fury was working with S.A.B.E.R. and became involved in Carol Danvers, Monica Rambeau and Kamala Khan’s cosmic crisis.
Marvel apparently isn’t telling Jackson much about Secret Wars
While Jackson knows which movie he is appearing in, he apparently knows very little about what Nick Fury will actually be doing.
Asked what he could reveal about the project, Jackson said he had “no idea” about the story beyond Marvel informing him which of the two Avengers films would feature him.
That leaves plenty unanswered. Fury could return as the strategic figure who once brought the Avengers together, become involved with the multiversal crisis, or serve an entirely different purpose. None of those possibilities has been confirmed.
The timing of his return is nevertheless interesting. Avengers: Doomsday is designed around heroes from multiple Marvel universes colliding as they confront Doctor Doom. Disney says the movie will bring together the Avengers, Fantastic Four, Thunderbolts, Wakandans, X-Men and other characters, with Anthony and Joe Russo directing. It opens on December 18, 2026.
Avengers: Secret Wars follows almost exactly a year later on December 17, 2027, after Disney moved both films from their earlier May release dates. The Russo brothers are also directing the sequel.
Saving Fury for the second film therefore raises an obvious narrative question: what happens in Doomsday that makes the man who originally assembled the Avengers necessary again?
Marvel is not answering that yet, and apparently neither can Jackson. But after three years without Nick Fury on screen, fans at least know where to expect him next.
