Out of all the Avengers Marvel has mined from its vast catalog of characters, there’s one in particular whose vocal fanbase has decried the comic studio. Why? For not providing her with her own solo movie, that’s why!
Scarlett Johansson’s Black Widow (aka Natasha Romanoff) was introduced in Iron Man 2 as Stark’s eye candy assistant before she unleashed her true potential on the hallway of Goons at the Hammer factory. Her Romanoff resume is steadily increasing, but not on account of her own standalone ventures. She’s appeared in Iron Man and Captain America’s solo pics, and kicked major Chitauri butt with them in The Avengers. So, will she ever get her own movie?
In another of Collider’s interviews with the Avengers, Johansson reveals that the idea of a Black Widow movie isn’t as far from Marvel’s minds as we might think:
“I think that there’s room for a standalone movie. The character has a really rich origin story and I’ve been really fortunate to kind of place all these layers on top of one another and kind of build up this character to this point where I think I can now start to peel them away and reveal different sides of her and really focus on—I think I’ve been able to grow with the character, the character’s been able to grow with me.
Her dilemma that she faces it’s a deeply personal one, she has this great, huge, epic kind of calling and now is suddenly going, ‘Wait a minute. I have this epic calling, but I wanna make a choice for myself. I feel like I’ve put in the hours, I should be able to make active choices’ and she inevitably chooses the heroic path and kind of puts her own personal desires and needs aside. Those are things that kind of butt up against each other and interesting things happen when you have a character that’s pulled in many different directions and in my mind there’s room for plenty more Black Widow and certainly more—I think I could see her in a standalone film.”
“I’ve spoken to Kevin about it. I mean, of course, of course we’ve had that conversation before, and I think Kevin would also like to see a standalone film. I think I can speak for him and say that. That’s all, really. Right now I think this character is used well in this part of the universe, but I think that Kevin—I mean, we’ve talked about it and we both share similar vision for what could be a standalone series.”
It’s worth checking out the rest of Collider’s interview to hear more on Johansson’s future Marvel plans. For now, the fate of a Black Widow movie seems to rest in the same place it has for several years: limbo. There’s no definitive word stating we won’t see one, which is reason enough to spark hope in the heart of Romanoff fans everywhere. That collective of acolytes has quite the presence within the industry itself, with Jessica Chastain having previously demanded that Marvel make the spy-centric spinoff, followed by The Descent director Neil Marshall going on record as saying “I would love to make a Black Widow movie.”
What do you say, is she long past due her own 120-minute adventure?
