Despite the tremendous amount of love fans have for Nick Fury, and the actor who plays him (Samuel L. Jackson), the character hasn’t been featured too heavily in the Marvel Cinematic Universe as of late. Though he was instrumental in putting the Avengers together, his role has been diminished quite a bit and he hasn’t been seen on screen since Age of Ultron. We’ve heard, however, that he’ll be involved in Infinity War, but what comes after that for the fan favorite character?
We already know that by the time Phase 3 concludes, the MCU will be a very different place, with a number of the heroes who’ve been there since the start making their exit. Of course, it’s not yet known who’ll be sticking around, but speculation is pointing towards Mr. Fury as being one of the individuals who unfortunately, bites the bullet. Granted, there’s nothing to confirm this just yet, but one fan has put together a pretty interesting theory as to why they think it may happen.
Taking to Reddit, they explained that Fury is an ideal character to kill off in Infinity War, for a few reasons. For one, there needs to be a significant event that happens to bring everyone back together and unite them after they were split up in Civil War. And obviously, Fury’s death would do just that.
Furthermore, given that Jackson has two more Marvel films left on his contract, and he’s already confirmed for Captain Marvel, that only leaves one more appearance and if you look at the studio’s upcoming slate, it’s Infinity War that makes the most sense for him to bow out of the franchise in. Last but not least, having Fury die could be the perfect catalyst for getting Carol Danvers to enter the picture, given that we know they worked together in the 90s, which we’ll see in the character’s aforementioned solo outing.
Now, as with any good fan theory, there are some holes here. If you recall, a similar plot device was already used back in The Avengers, when Phil Coulson was “killed off.” As such, it’d be surprising if Marvel were to head down the same route. Not only that, but we’ve also seen some evidence pointing towards Jackson appearing in Avengers 4, which would obviously be problematic for this theory, too.
Right now, all we can really do is speculate. Sammy J isn’t on the Avengers: Infinity War cast list at the moment and though we know that he does have one more MCU appearance on his contract aside from Captain Marvel, it hasn’t been confirmed where that’ll be. Still, when it comes to characters who are likely to be killed off, Fury is certainly right up there and we wouldn’t be at all surprised if he ends up meeting his maker by the end of Phase 3.