How 'Pulp Fiction' Made Its Way Into 'Captain America: The Winter Soldier'

One of the biggest easter eggs in Captain America: The Winter Soldier has to do with Pulp Fiction. Yes, the 1994 Quentin Tarantino masterpiece. Towards the end of the film there's a blink-and-you'll-miss-it reference to the film that either gets huge laughs from an audience, or total silence if they don't have time to figure it out.

Where exactly this happens is a bit of a spoiler so, below, we'll describe it and let directors Anthony and Joe Russo tell you how this Pulp Fiction Captain America reference came to be.

Major Spoilers for Captain America: The Winter Soldier below.

Early in Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Samuel L. Jackson's Nick Fury dies. Or, at least, we're led to believe that. In fact, it was just a trick to fool HYDRA into thinking he was dead. He ends up helping Captain America defeat HYDRA at the end before heading off to Europe for some mysterious reason.

However, the last scene of the film takes place at Nick Fury's false gravestone. For one second, the stone is revealed. On it is the following quote:

The path of the righteous man: Ezekiel 25: 17

Which, obviously, is the beginning of Jules Winfield's famous quote from Quentin Tarantino's Pulp Fiction. A character for which Samuel L. Jackson received an Oscar nomination, and a guy he is closely associated with.

I asked the film's directors, Joe and Anthony Russo, whose idea this was and they said the following:

Anthony Russo: Well yeah, we, I mean, we just, we kept trying to figure out what his tombstone should look like and we couldn't settle on anything like–Joe Russo: Like what would his epitaph be and, you know, we went through like maybe 10 iterations of his tombstone. And I remember was it–?Anthony: We were just sitting in visual effects one day.Joe: Dan Deleeuw, our effects supervisor, came up with the idea to do that.Anthony: I don't remember.Joe: I think it was. But again, you know, we're always because we're geeks and we love that kind of stuff, when we make movies, we're always trying to put it in the movies, our movies for other people, our TV shows. So it's better to put something in there that is a wink and a smile and excites people than just something bland, you know?

And here's a screenshot, thanks to Fat Movie Guy.

So it's just a fun movie reference thrown in by the directors. I think it's great. Did you like the Pulp Fiction Captain America reference?