Sometimes luck helps you land a role that was originally a one-time appearance and turns it into a multi-appearance role leading to your own television series. This is exactly how actor Clark Gregg went from his appearance in IRON MAN to showing up in several Marvel Studios films, as well as a One-Shot, to becoming the lead in ABC's AGENTS OF SHIELD.
While speaking with Kevin Smith on one of his Fatman on Batman podcasts, THOR writer Zack Stentz (who is now confirmed to be writing a BOOSTER GOLD movie) disclosed how he and his THOR writing partner Ashley Miller brought Agent Coulson back for THOR.
Here's the transcription (via ScreenRant):
"This was a page one re-write, based very loosely on story beats that they gave us… there were beats that they had, and beats that they didn’t have, and we were kind of working them together. At one point it was like ‘Okay we want S.H.I.E.L.D. to be in there’ and they’re like ‘We can’t have S.H.I.E.L.D. as the bad guys!’ ‘No, not the bad guys, just the people opposing Thor; they’ll be the good guys by the end, trust us.’ And then they’re like ‘Well, you can have S.H.I.E.L.D., but Sam Jackson’s holding us up in negotiations so we don’t know if we can have Nick Fury. And we’re like ‘Well, how about that Clark Gregg guy from the first Iron Man, he was great and he popped! Can we have Coulson?’ And they’re like ‘Coulson, Coulson, Coulson… oh him! Yeah, you can have him.’… They ended up giving him a bigger role in Iron Man 2 because they liked how he was popping in Thor. Clark Gregg actually sent us t-shirts as a thank you."
This is how the role began to grow into what it has become today. A little luck and a nod to Samuel L. Jackson, and his representation, for his part in not being available to appear in THOR.
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