The Marvel Cinematic Universe is a carefully crafted juggernaut that’s always planting seeds for what’s to come, with Kevin Feige and co. known for planning out their films years in advance. But for Cate Shortland’s upcoming spinoff Black Widow, the MCU will look to the past and bring us a tale that’s largely set in between two previous movies in the franchise, those being Civil War and Infinity War.
That makes sense, too, seeing as Natasha Romanoff met her maker in Avengers: Endgame after throwing herself off the cliffs of Vormir so that Hawkeye – and, by effect, half of the universe – could live. As such, you can expect Black Widow to zero in on some of the character beats that preceded Nat’s heroic act.
But it won’t only be looking to the past, as one of the film’s post-credits scenes will apparently tease what’s to come in the MCU’s future and it apparently involves a pretty big twist. So, look away now if you want to walk into things with a clean slate.
According to BGR, after the credits we’ll learn that Florence Pugh’s Yelena Belova and O.T. Fagbenle’s Taskmaster have been working together all along and not only that, but they’re working for none other than William Hurt’s Thaddeus Ross. And with both Ross and Yelena said to have roles in The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, it looks like Natasha’s solo outing will indeed be setting the stage for the MCU’s future, despite being a prequel.
Of course, with Black Widow currently lacking a release date and the aforementioned Disney Plus show now in danger of being delayed, too, it remains to be seen when we’ll get to see for ourselves how all these pieces fit into place. But make no mistake about it, there are some very exciting new developments set to take place in the Marvel Cinematic Universe in the years to come.