Why It’s Not ‘Too Late’ For Black Widow’s Solo Movie, According To Scarlett Johansson

Scarlett Johansson has heard Marvel fans say it’s too late for Black Widow to be getting her first — and presumably only — solo MCU movie. After all, Natasha Romanoff was first introduced in Iron Man 2, which came out in 2010, 10 years before Black Widow will arrive in 2020. Also, we just saw her die in Avengers: Endgame! It’s a rather unusual choice to give a character their first feature film, set in the recent past, after the character died in a movie that was released the previous year. Is Black Widow just an “afterthought” for the MCU?

To Scarlett Johansson, even though Black Widow had to see multiple Iron Man, Captain America, and even Ant-Man films come and go before she got her turn, she needed to wait until this moment for the full impact of Nat’s story.

It sounds like there’s more depth to the story now, and Marvel fans certainly know Black Widow better than we did 10 years ago. Interestingly enough, Marvel released the first teaser trailer for Black Widow this past Monday and no one told Scarlett Johansson it was coming. She told Stephen Colbert she learned when she got a text from Captain America Chris Evans at 5 a.m. saying the trailer looked great.

You can check it out again here:

As Scarlett Johansson noted, the story takes place between Captain America: Civil War and Avengers: Infinity War. Jac Schaeffer co-wrote the script with Ned Benson and she told Inverse Natasha is “very much on her own, and over the events of the Black Widow movie she has to reckon with some of the red in her ledger.” Schaeffer said she “cried like a baby” watching Natasha’s sacrifice in Avengers: Endgame. It was just weird for her to see Natasha’s death on screen:

Scarlett Johansson said Black Widow gave her closure after Avengers: Endgame, and it may give fans the same feeling. At the same time, the movie is just the start of MCU Phase 4, so many fans are curious how Marvel’s tradition of post-credits scenes will set up the next movies — including The Eternals, Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, and Thor: Love and Thunder.