Out of all the new characters introduced in the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s Black Widow, it’s been Florence Pugh’s Yelena Belova stealing most of the headlines, which is entirely justified and fully deserved. However, David Harbour also puts in a strong showing as Russian super soldier Red Guardian, and the actor is clearly desperate to come back for more adventures.
Having already signaled his desires to see Alexei Shostakov throw hands with Captain America, the Stranger Things star doubled down on those sentiments by saying there’s so much more that Marvel can do with his grizzled ex-con. Well, it looks as though he’s got at least one major backer on his side, after Black Widow director Cate Shortland admitted that she’d be thrilled to see Red Guardian get his own solo adventure.
“Sometimes, not sometimes, often I would be crying with laughter. And there was so much good stuff that didn’t end up in the film. But I think that’s why Red Guardian needs his own movie. Because it will be so funny.”
Naturally, Harbour was just as enthusiastic at the prospect after revealing that a lot of scenes he shot opposite Rachel Weisz’s Melina Vostokoff were left on the cutting room floor, and there’s plenty more to explore both in terms of that particular dynamic, and Red Guardian as a whole.
“There’s a whole other movie too, on the cutting room floor, of like, me and Rachel flirting throughout the movie and various sequences. When she breaks me out of prison and, you know, her stuff with the Taskmaster. I mean, there’s tons of stuff that we improv in this movie. And I think that’s a credit to Cate Shortland, she saw the chemistry between us and she saw sort of our voracious, you know, appetite for these characters and for this world, and she just kind of let us run with it. People want to see more of this character, I would love to give people more. And I’m glad he’s alive at the end of the movie too.”
No offense to either Harbour or Red Guardian, but he hardly seems like the obvious candidate to get his own standalone blockbuster, especially when Yelena looks to be the one positioned at the forefront of the Black Widow expansion.
That being said, a Disney Plus series following Alexei’s glory days is definitely something that could work, while he’s almost certainly guaranteed to become a semi-regular fixture of the MCU moving forward as Phase Four continues to balance between leaning into the legacy of the old guard while bringing in a bevvy of new faces, with Red Guardian‘s connections to Natasha Romanoff making him an ideal candidate.