As the success of Avengers: Endgame and Zack Snyder’s Justice League have shown, fans are more than happy to support butt-numbing comic book blockbusters as long as the story is good enough to keep them invested, otherwise you end with the bloated and turgid likes of Wonder Woman 1984, which definitely did not need every single one its 151 minutes.
After being delayed by fourteen months, fans are champing at the bit to finally see the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s theatrical side of Phase Four kick off with Black Widow, which is scoring a simultaneous release on the big screen and Disney Plus Premier Access. It was revealed months ago that Scarlett Johansson’s fond farewell to Natasha Romanoff would run for 133 minutes, but an updated listing has now added another 60 seconds onto that time.
While that’s hardly an earth-shattering revelation, it could mean an additional post-credits sequence. If you think about it, Julia Louis-Dreyfus confirmed that she shot Black Widow footage as Contessa Valentina Allegra de la Fontaine for what was supposed to be her debut, but the delays saw her parachuted into The Falcon and the Winter Soldier instead, so there may well be room to rejig some of the MCU’s signature foreshadowing.
Director Cate Shortland also admitted that Black Widow has been locked, loaded and ready to go for over a year now, so unless it was a simple mistake on the distributor’s part, then it isn’t outside the realms of possibility that something new may have been added to either pad out the Contessa’s absence or compensate and perhaps reference the events to have unfolded on Disney Plus so far. In any case, one positive is that it’s only a few weeks until we find out for sure.
