Story Behind the PULP FICTION Reference in CAPTAIN AMERICA 2
One of the funniest easter eggs in Captain America: The Winter Soldier wasn't a reference to another Marvel property. It was a reference to Samuel L. Jackson's Jules Winfield character in Quentin Tarantino's 1994 classic Pulp Fiction. Maybe you caught it, maybe you didn't, but thanks to /Film and directors Anthony and Joe Russo, we have a little background on how it ended up in the film.
SPOILERS in case you haven't seen the movie yet.
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At a certain point in the film we are led to believe that Nick Fury died. That's what he wanted Hydra to think. After they defeated Hydra and took down S.H.I.E.L.D., Fury, Cap, Falcon, and Black Widow meet in a graveyard at Fury's fake gravesite. His tombstone had the following quote:
The path of the righteous man: Ezekiel 25: 17
That's part of a bible verse quote that Samuel L. Jackson quoted in Pulp Fiction. I've seen the movie twice so far, and the first audience I saw it with cracked up when they saw it. The second audience didn't even flinch at it. So who knows how many people caught it.
Here's the explanation of how the quote made the final cut:
Anthony Russo: Well yeah, we, I mean, we just, we kept trying to figure out what his tombstone should look like and we couldn’t settle on anything like–
Joe Russo: Like what would his epitaph be and, you know, we went through like maybe 10 iterations of his tombstone. And I remember was it–?
Anthony: We were just sitting in visual effects one day.
Joe: Dan Deleeuw, our effects supervisor, came up with the idea to do that.
Anthony: I don’t remember.
Joe: I think it was. But again, you know, we’re always because we’re geeks and we love that kind of stuff, when we make movies, we’re always trying to put it in the movies, our movies for other people, our TV shows. So it’s better to put something in there that is a wink and a smile and excites people than just something bland, you know?
I loved that they threw that in there. It was a fun surprise.