Here’s a bedtime story about, amongst other things, economies of scale.

After appearing in the post credits geek-tease on Iron Man, Sam Jackson’s Nick Fury was slated for a bigger, better showing in the next installment. Seemed like a sure thing, until Jackson himself cast the assumption into doubt. Other stories started surfacing about cost-cutting or, at the very least, an unexpected sense of budgetary pragmatism in the Marvel movie bursary (Don Cheadle in, Terrence Howard out, Mickey Rourke in, out, in, out and shake it all about). Our collective popcorn dreams of more Samuel-powered Fury seemed to be a burst bubble…

Not any more. The Hollywood Reporter are telling us that Jackson has been signed for appearances in nine more Marvel motion pictures - including Iron Man 2, Thor, Captain America, The Avengers, possible sequels to these and, perhaps most interestingly of all, the lead in their in-development S.H.I.E.L.D movie.

Samuel L. Jackson really does have better things to do than spend nine times the typical tentpole schedule mucking about in an eye patch, but by keeping eight of these appearances down to managable cameos, or so I’d assume, he at once gets to keep his integrity, his comic book cred, and blank pages in his planner for more exciting things.

And, I hope, a reasonable slice of greenbacked recompense.

There’s mild intrigue in the list of films we can expect to see Fury cropping up in. Appearances in Thor and Captain America pretty much confirm that previously rumored directions for the projects - being Valhalla bound and period set respectively - are now scrapped in favor of cross-over-tastic contemporary settings.

Getting Jackson to ink for all nine pictures now means Marvel can offer him a decent enough payday with the promise of repeated returns on this investment in the future. The only risk is the off chance we all fall out of love with Jackson - maybe if he’s caught plying kids with Jesus Juice or burying a body in the woods this might happen, but other than that: fat chance.