She may have made the ultimate sacrifice in Avengers: Endgame, but Natasha Romanoff will be back in Black Widow, Scarlett Johansson’s long-awaited first solo outing in the MCU. There’s been a lot of debate about whether the film is coming too late, seeing as we’ve already seen the heroine meet her end in her last appearance, but Marvel Studios chief Kevin Feige has teased that something BW will do is cast Endgame and Avengers: Infinity War in a whole new light.
Speaking with IGN, Feige explained that the aim with Black Widow is to explore more of Natasha’s origins as well as what she got up to during the gap between Captain America: Civil War and Infinity War. The intention is that we’ll be able to go back and watch the character’s arc across the past two Avengers movies and have a better understanding of her actions and motivations.
“[We] had this thought of exploring a little bit of her past that we hadn’t seen before and how that impacts the adventure she had between Civil War and Infinity War. And in fact, there are things that she does in Infinity War and Endgame that you’ll see in a new light once you see the Black Widow.”
Presumably one thing that will make more sense is Natasha’s sacrifice on Vormir, with the Widow electing to take her own life so that Hawkeye could live and get his wife and kids back. The Black Widow trailer made it clear that it would be about Nat reconnecting with her lost “family.” In Endgame, though, she called the Avengers her true family. So, it seems the events of the film will make her re-evaluate what and who she values most and what she’s willing to give up for them.
Johansson has previously defended the decision to make Black Widow after Endgame in a way that echoes Feige’s comments, promising that it’ll give fans “closure” for Natasha’s death. And we’ll get this sense of closure when the movie blasts into theaters on May 1st, 2020.
