So Samuel L. Jackson IS Nick Fury in Iron Man Movie After All?

I’m totally disillusioned. After Jon Favreau shot down rumors that Samuel L. Jackson would be playing Nick Fury in the upcoming “Iron Man” movie (read it here), I believed him. (Well, sort of. He was always coy about it, so maybe it’s not such a big lie.) Recently, MTV interviewed “Iron Man” producer Avi Arad, and he all but confirmed that Samuel L. Jackson would indeed be making a cameo in “Iron Man” as Nick Fury, the head of SHIELD, possibly in anticipation of Fury and SHIELD jumping into their own spin-off movie. And oh yeah, Hilary Swank will be in “Iron Man”, too.

Clearly a bit frustrated, Arad then amended himself. “The Sam thing was supposed to be the biggest secret of them all,” he shrugged. “It’s amazing how it got out.”

Nevertheless, the existence of Jackson’s hard-boiled superspy reveals a newfound willingness by Marvel to begin mimicking the way its comics mix different characters into each other’s storylines on a regular basis.

“It’s because now we have control over the properties,” Arad explained, citing the new era of Marvel funding such upcoming flicks as “Iron Man,” “Nick Fury” and “Captain America,” after a decade of holding hands with studios like Sony for Spider-Man or Fox for The Fantastic Four. “Now you can mix and match. It used to be different studios having different characters.”

“You try and get three major studios to sit together and cross [promote],” he laughed. It’s too tough.”

So expect not just Sam Jackson in “Iron Man”, but two-time Oscar winner Hilary Swank. If I had to guess, I’d say Swank will be cameoing alongside Jackson, and that the two will play SHIELD agents. Jackson as SHIELD’s headman, of course, while Swank is … Agent Sharon Carter, perhaps?