The Marvel Character Sylvester Stallone Thought He Was Perfect For

At this point in the history of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, it often feels as if every actor known to man has worked on the franchise. Though that may not actually be true, the sheer amount of well-known faces who have shown up in, or at least offered their voice to, either an MCU movie or TV show (if not both) is pretty mammoth, extending across ages and generations. And while there are still a few notable standouts among the biggest film stars in the world (no matter how many times people salivate over the idea of Tom Cruise appearing in one of these movies, it hasn't happened, at least not yet), many big names pop up in even small parts. 

As an example, consider one of the biggest action stars of the 1980s: Sylvester Stallone. The multi-hyphenate made himself into an icon through a few different franchises, most notably the "Rambo" and "Rocky" properties, the latter of which began with a film he wrote and starred in (and which eventually took home a Best Picture Oscar). Though he's had a few fallow periods, Stallone has continued to remake himself and his image over time, be it by starring in dramas like the 1997 film "Cop Land" or playing the silly villain in one of the "Spy Kids" movies. Nevertheless, he didn't enter the MCU until 2017 courtesy of writer and director James Gunn, who cast him as an intense Ravager named Stakar Ogord in the second and third "Guardians of the Galaxy" films.

Still, while Stallone now has a place in the MCU, he always envisioned himself as a very different Marvel Comics character: Nick Fury.

By now, of course, we all know that Samuel L. Jackson is the one and only Nick Fury, so it's awfully hard to imagine anyone else playing the quintessential, eye-patched character aside from him. Be that as it may, when Stallone did a lengthy interview with The Hollywood Reporter in connection with the arrival of the TV drama "Tulsa King," he was asked about the idea of him playing a superhero. In fact, the interviewer noted that he was nearly cast as the Man of Steel in 1978's "Superman: The Movie," a role we all know was ultimately played by the late Christopher Reeve.

When asked if there was a comic book character who he had never gotten the chance to play despite dreaming of doing so, Stallone responded by noting that his distinctive look, combined with his memorably gravelly voice, would have posed limitations on the types of superheroes he could play. "I don't look like any comic book character," Stallone replied before asking, "Who was the guy Sam Jackson ended up playing?" At the interviewer's clarification that he meant Fury, Stallone added, "Yeah, I thought I could have done something like that, where I'm not the main guy."

It is, of course, true that Jackson's Nick Fury has never gotten to headline his own MCU movie, although the onetime S.H.I.E.L.D. director did serve as the main character in the Disney+ series "Secret Invasion" (a show that, most would agree, was sadly a flat-out disaster). Sometimes, Fury shows up for a brief cameo, as in his now-famous moment in the post-credits scene for the first "Iron Man" film in 2008. In movies like "Captain America: The Winter Soldier," however, he's a key supporting player. Considering how old Stallone already was when the MCU got off the ground, it's easy to understand why he wouldn't be able to see himself as one of its heroes and would instead fancy himself as someone with importance but perhaps not as much screen time. But it's awfully hard, if not fully impossible, to imagine anyone else (let alone Stallone) donning that eyepatch and the leather jacket.

Whatever else may be said of Stallone, he has a very shrewd and solid sense of how he can be perceived as an actor. In that same line of questioning about what character he may have wanted to play, Stallone noted, "I could have never played the Terminator. No one would make a robot with a crooked mouth and voice that sounds like a pallbearer." 

Age aside, when he was a younger man, Stallone may not have fit well into the roles of Tony Stark or Bruce Banner (though he could have perhaps easily played Banner just when he was the Incredible Hulk). Considering the vast depth and breadth of comic book characters from which the MCU has had to pull in populating its many stories, it's not surprising that Stallone got himself a character to play — even if Stakar Ogord is more familiar less for his name and more for the fact of who's portraying him.

Stallone also stuck with Gunn when the auteur made the jump from Marvel to DC, appearing as King Shark in "The Suicide Squad" in 2021. But Stallone may well be right: He's such a singular screen presence, from his vocal stylings to his face to his entire appearance, that he's almost too distinctive to buy in an established comic book hero role. Of course, with Gunn now acting as the head of DC Studios, who knows if Stallone may be pulled in for more work as King Shark. At the very least, if that does happen, he'd be fulfilling his own sense of being in these franchises without being "the main guy."