While it’s no secret that a standalone Black Widow movie has been in the works for a while now, Marvel Studios hadn’t officially announced the project until this past weekend’s San Diego Comic-Con Hall H panel. New details, including a fleshed out cast and villain confirmation, clarified a lot of fans’ questions but also left many concerned as to whether it’s too late to give the character her own movie.
This year’s gigantic multi-billion dollar-grossing Avengers: Endgame wrapped up the narrative on most of the original six Avengers. While some, like Hawkeye and Thor, still have long roads ahead of them, others like Captain America, Iron Man and Natasha Romanoff herself were given the perfect conclusions to their movies-long story arcs. With the reveal that the Black Widow solo pic would be a prequel set after Captain America: Civil War, some wondered what’s the point in backtracking?
In a post-panel interview with Good Morning America, star Scarlett Johansson sat down and opened up about why she was willing to return to the MCU one last time:
“I would’ve been happy to end it at Endgame and walk away – I felt like I was proud of the work that we had all done together. But the only reason to do this standalone would be to elevate the genre in some way.”
Johansson has nearly been with the MCU since the very beginning, first appearing as Natasha Romanoff in 2010’s Iron Man 2. More often than not, the Soviet trained spy has been regulated to a supporting character given a few moments to shine, but rarely her own story to tell. Black Widow obviously plans to change that, and apparently, it’s not going to be short on emotion or action.
The actress’ comments about “elevating the genre” come after fans were previewed the first footage of the film, which is apparently hyper-violent and reminiscent of the John Wick series. Those movies make a meal out of their hand-to-hand combat sequences, which elevate the emotional storyline instead of detract from it. That type of action filmmaking would be a welcome addition to the superhero genre, and Johansson seems to recognize that.
With D23 right around the corner, it’s likely general audiences will soon be given a sneak peak (or maybe even a full trailer) in the very near future. Hopefully that will not only put to ease the concerns that a Black Widow film is unnecessary, but also confirm that there are still plenty of Natasha Romanoff stories left to tell.
