“I’d Find That Highly Amusing”: Marvel Writer Addresses Rumor That George Clooney Turned Down the MCU Because of His R-Rated Comic

A longstanding myth among Marvel fans is that George Clooney passed on starring in a Nick Fury movie in the early 2000s after reading Garth Ennis’ brutal Fury series from 2001. In an interview, Ennis dismissed the notion, suggesting it was highly unlikely his work had any influence on the development of a Fury film – and that he doubts his series ever made it into the A-list actor’s hands.

In an interview with Comic Book Herald, released on on YouTube, Garth Ennis responded to a question from host Dave Buesing, asked him if he’d ever heard the rumor about Clooney. “I did hear that,” Ennis replies, “and I’d be fascinated to learn if it was true.”

Ennis offered a more realistic alternative to the story: that among the many factors that resulted in a Nick Fury movie never materializing – with or without George Clooney – his violent miniseries likely did not even make the list.

Garth Ennis Dispels The Myth That His Writing Kept George Clooney From Playing Nick Fury

Fury #1-6 – Written By Garth Ennis; Art By Darick Robertson, Jimmy Palmiotti, Avalon Studios, Richard Starkings & Wes Abb

Ennis offered his take on what might have happened:

“
If it’s true that
(Clooney)
decided against playing Nick Fury on the basis of that
Fury
book that I did with Darick
(Robertson)
– which is still one of my favorites, by the way – I would find that highly amusing and entertaining. But also I wonder if it might have been more that… perhaps someone said to him, some advisor or other, ‘You don’t want to go near this.’
”

In 2001, the Fury miniseries was one of the inaugural launch titles of Marvel’s MAX line. Depicting the S.H.I.E.L.D. director as a grizzled veteran looking for a new battlefield now that the Cold War was over, Fury gets his wish when he learns that former HYDRA agent Rudi Gagarin has invaded a small island to relive the “glory days” and stage his own violent war games. The series took the “Mature Readers Only” label to heart, pushing the violence and explicit content further than any other Marvel title at the time.

For instance, a climactic scene features Fury strangling enemy Gagarin with his own intestines. Clooney supposedly passing on the role of Nick Fury because of the ultra-violent comic had major ramifications for Marvel moving forward. Two other MAX titles, Deathlok and Ant-Man, were each canceled before they were published, reportedly due to both properties having films in development. For his part, however, The Boys’ Garth Ennis finds the whole thing to be blown wildly out of proportion, highlighting how a George Clooney-starring Nick Fury movie likely would have gone in a very different direction:

It’s very hard to believe that, were there to have been a Nick Fury movie at that time, it would have remotely resembled anything that I wrote.

Garth Ennis Believes George Clooney Never Read “Fury”

He Would Be “Fascinated” To Learn Otherwise

Ennis stated in the interview that he finds it hard to believe that Clooney ever even read his Fury series, stating, “I suspect that if you asked George Clooney…he would probably tell you that he never even saw the comic.” Garth Ennis himself returned to the character multiple times in the years since, writing further stories such as Fury: My War Gone By. Whether it’s true that George Clooneypassed on the Nick Fury role because of his ultraviolent MAX series, or not, it’s nice to know Garth Ennis still gets the chance to write the character at Marvel.

Source: Comic Book Herald, Garth Ennis Interview