Now that Black Widow has finally been confirmed for release on July 9th, with the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s feature-length Phase Four kickoff coming to theaters and Disney Plus Premier Access, it was inevitable that a new trailer would arrive shortly after as the final stretch of the marketing campaign begins in earnest.
After all, the first promo debuted way back in December 2019, and we haven’t seen a new preview for the movie since March of last year, meaning Disney and Marvel need to start ramping up the hype all over again. The Avengers connections were all over the latest spot, too, featuring callbacks to the signature theme of Earth’s Mightiest Heroes and making it clear that the ties to Natasha Romanoff’s future are just as important to the narrative as joining the dots to her past, with Black Widow set shortly after the events of Captain America: Civil War.
Throughout it all, we’ve been operating under the impression that the mysterious Taskmaster was the primary antagonist, who we’re also expecting to be revealed as O-T Fagbenle’s Rick Mason all along, but the final trailer now appears to have made it clear that Ray Winstone’s Dreykov has been pulling the strings behind the bad guy from the beginning.
We haven’t seen much of Dreykov in any of the footage up to this point, but after seeing him relay instructions to Taskmaster before overseeing an operation from Red Room HQ, it’s looking like he’s the true villain of the piece. A shady guy in a suit will hardly see the MCU breaking new ground, but we’re still curious to learn how it all ties together in Black Widow, given how murky Natasha’s past has been during her decade as part of the franchise.
