Marvel Adds Two More To The Black Widow Director Shortlist

Natalia “Natasha” Alianovna Romanova is flying solo. And not a moment too soon.

While Scarlett Johansson’s secret agent is still expected to feature in Avengers 4, the standalone Black Widow movie is beginning to make serious headway over at Marvel Studios, after appointing scribe Jac Schaeffer on script duties.

Exactly what her screenplay involves remains to be seen, but previous reports have claimed that the Black Widow solo film plans to travel back to the character’s secretive past, long before her tenure at the now-defunct S.H.I.E.L.D. All of this has led many to believe that Sebastian Stan’s Bucky Barnes is a shoo-in for the spinoff, given that he once had ties to HYRDA before Letitia Wright’s Shuri worked her magic.

File that one in the rumor cabinet for now, as the first order of business will be finding a director and after learning just yesterday that Marvel had their eye on Cate Shortland, we’re now hearing that two more filmmakers have entered the mix: Amma Asante and Maggie Betts. From what we understand, all three women have met with Kevin Feige and Scarlett Johansson and a decision is expected to be made soon.

Like Shortland, Betts and Asante are far from household names, with the former known for her 2017 film Novitiate and her 2010 documentary The Carrier. Asante, meanwhile, you may remember as being the one behind the camera for Belle and A United Kingdom. Again, nothing too mainstream here, but Marvel’s no stranger to taking risks on indie directors who’ve yet to prove themselves with blockbusters and it almost always works out (see: Spider-Man: Homecoming and Thor: Ragnarok).

Regardless of who the studio ends up going with, we fully trust they’ll make the right decision and our hopes are certainly high for the long awaited Black Widow solo movie. With any luck, we’ll learn a little bit more about it before all eyes turn towards Marvel’s other female-fronted film, Captain Marvel.