May 26, 2023 marks the 25th anniversary of a decidedly dubious Marvel project. Nick Fury: Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. -- a failed pilot starring David Hasselhoff as Marvel's one-eyed superspy -- arrived on the Fox network to the utter horror of comic-book fans everywhere. Time has not been kind to it, and with the arrival of Samuel L. Jackson's Fury in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, it now serves more as a cautionary example than any legitimate entertainment value of its own.
With Secret Invasion on its way and Jackson's Fury set to take center stage for the first time, it's worth looking back at the inept earlier version, which still holds a strange fascination. Nick Fury arrived in a moment of huge (and painful) changes in comic-book adaptations, making it an artifact of a very different pop culture world. Hasselhoff himself still had a reputation primarily as an actor, with Baywatch in the middle of its disturbingly successful run, and its biggest star still portraying characters instead of variations of himself. As a movie, Nick Fury is terrible. As a signpost for Marvel's path to domination of the pop-culture world, it's invaluable.
David Hasselhoff's Nick Fury Arrived in a Very Different Time
The year before Nick Fury, Joel Schumacher's Batman & Robin brought a disastrous end to the first wave of Batman movies. A few months later, Blade scored Marvel's first big theatrical success, and opened the door for the X-Men and Spider-Man franchises to flourish. For perhaps the first time, DC's A-list movies looked shaky and uncertain of the future, just as Wesley Snipes demonstrated the mainstream potential of Marvel characters at the movies. Into that steps Nick Fury, a by-the-numbers pilot blissfully unaware of the ground changing beneath its feet.
Indeed, it still takes pages from the 1980s action movie playbook, depicting Fury as an aging cowboy put out to pasture after the fall of the Soviet Union. Cop clichés make copious appearances as well, with Fury being presented as the renegade maverick who gets results. S.H.I.E.L.D. is similarly presented as the well-meaning but unwieldy "system" getting in his way. He's pulled out of an abandoned mine in the Yukon Territory where he's been living for the last five years when HYDRA launches a plot to destroy the population of New York. Add to that low production values, fork-and-spoon action sequences, and a cast all too ready to chew on the scenery, and it's no wonder the intended series was never green-lit.
David Hasselhoff Is a Bad Nick Fury
The other real problem with Nick Fury is the star. Hasselhoff was never anyone's idea of a master Thespian, and he's simply not up for giving Fury any recognizable humanity. Instead, he leans heavily on the gruff curmudgeon stereotype, which turns the character into a thoroughly unlikable creep. The ham factor rubs off on the rest of the cast, and coupled with the lazy story and sub-par dialogue, it becomes a hypnotically inept centerpiece of the whole sorry affair.
Ironically, for all its flaws, Nick Fury is conceptually very loyal to the material that created it. S.H.I.E.L.D.'s Helicarrier still serves as the organization's floating headquarters while HYDRA's goals and methods differ little from its later MCU incarnation. At times, it feels very much like the Swinging 60s era in the comics, with wild gadgets and HYDRA acting as SPECTRE to Fury's 007. Marvel fans can have fun just noting the wildly different interpretations of figures like Alexander Pierce and Contessa de Fontaine here, as well as HYDRA's bevvy of over-the-top baddies.
Above all, it's a testament to just how far Marvel has come in the ensuing quarter-century. Fury now belongs to Jackson and his careful, understated master spy tops Hasselhoff's in every way. The MCU franchise to which Jackson's Fury belongs has the resources and storytelling prowess that Marvel couldn't dream of in 1998. The MCU is even rich with multi-film plot arcs that emphasizes character over action from time to time. That leaves the first Nick Fury as a litmus test, putting everything that followed into proper context. If Blade was the first step on the road to Marvel's current heights, Hasselhoff marks the depths where it all started. The latter even helps the worst MCU project look a whole lot better in comparison.
Secret Invasion premieres June 21 on Disney+.