Scarlett Johansson recently spoke to Collider about the future of Black Widow and seeing her eventually get her own solo film. She revealed to them that she’s open to the idea and has again spoken to Marvel’s Kevin Feige about it, adding they’ve spoken about making a series of films.
“I think that there’s room for a standalone movie. The character has a really rich origin story and I’ve been really fortunate to kind of place all these layers on top of one another and kind of build up this character to this point where I think I can now start to peel them away and reveal different sides of her and really focus on—I think I’ve been able to grow with the character, the character’s been able to grow with me.”
“I’ve spoken to Kevin about it. I mean, of course, of course we’ve had that conversation before, and I think Kevin would also like to see a standalone film. I think I can speak for him and say that. That’s all, really. Right now I think this character is used well in this part of the universe, but I think that Kevin—I mean, we’ve talked about it and we both share similar vision for what could be a standalone series.”
Here’s a history on the Black Widow movie.
Before Marvel became a production studio powerhouse, a solo Black Widow film almost went into production over at Lionsgate. That’s until, flops like Elektra and Catwoman were used as escape-goats to axing the project.
The character was then absorbed into the lineup of Iron Man 2 instead. Emily Blunt was then cast as Widow, only to be replaced with Scarlett Johansson after Fox exercised a contract to have her removed from the production and instead place into their awful Gulliver’s Travels remake.
During the Comic-Con promotion of Iron Man 2, it was first suggested that both War Machine and Black Widow had solo films in development. That talk quickly disappeared, it’s assumed that it was the doing of Marvel’s meddling Ike Perlmutter, who has cited “toy sales” as a reason behind blocking female characters from getting their own films.
There has been recent encouragement since Ike’s removal by Disney’s Alan Horn from making discussions for Marvel Studios, that the studio will be pursuing projects that had been previously blocked. Black Panther and Captain Marvel being two projects announced/fast-tracked around the wake of that.
Scarlett broke-out with the international success Lucy and will be leading Dreamworks’ Ghost In The Shell movie. It was also revealed she was the highest grossing actress. Very hard to ignore the desire from fans to see Widow get her own solo adventure, while all the boys seem to get multiple films. Along with obscure characters like Ant-Man and Doctor Strange jumping ahead of her.
Audiences know Black Widow very well and would support a solo feature in a second.
Joss Whedon recently mentioned a desire to tackle a Black Widow movie, if Marvel let him.
The Russo Brothers as well, who would make excellent producers while they’re busy with the Avengers franchise.
“Hell yeah! We love that character!..And we love Scarlett [Johansson]!…We find that the character is one of if not the richest character in the Marvel universe. A very complex character, haunted by demons and her understanding of the world is fascinating. I think there is a lot that can be done with that character.”
We’ve already pointed out who we’d love to see direct the film, as both John Wick directors Chad Stahelski and David Leitch seem like solid choices. Since, they already have experience working with Marvel Studios, Kevin Feige, The Russo Brothers, and possibly even Scarlett Johansson as well.
Just a reminder, both Chad and David were second unit directors on Captain America: Civil War, leading us to believe they could have future roles as primary directors on upcoming Marvel features films.
Chad recently tackling John Wick: Chapter 2 on his own, while David went solo making the spy flick The Coldest City starring Charlize Theron.
Chad’s other action heavy credits as a second unit director include The Brothers Grimsby, Expendables 2, The Hunger Games, The Hunger Games: Catching Fire and Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows. David also has some impressive second unit credits like The Wolverine and the billion dollar hit Jurassic World.
These are obviously the type of directors you’d want to tackle an action heavy superhero film with a character that doesn’t exactly have superpowers, relying more on her whits, weapons and hand-to-hand combat.
Would you like see a string of solo Black Widow films? Who should direct them?
SOURCE: COLLIDER