THE MARVEL CINEMATIC Universe is like
a shark: always moving forward. As Phase Four
begins, the next few fi lms that Marvel has
planned — the cosmic shenanigans of The
Eternals, the mysticism of Shang-Chi And The
Legend Of The Ten Rings, the reportedly
horror-skewed Doctor Strange In The Multiverse
Of Madness and Thor’s, er, full-body Jane Foster
makeover in Love And Thunder — all seem
designed to push the envelope and drive the
already-sprawling universe in new directions
But sometimes, to go forwards, you have to
go backwards. Black Widow, kicking off this new
era, is reversing. Set between the Wars Civil and
Infi nity, Natasha Romanoff ’s much-anticipated
solo outing is an outlier: Marvel is turning back
the clock after a major character’s death. This is
not business as usual. This fi lm shouldn’t exist.
For that reason, “backwards” might be the
perfect choice of direction for the fi rst fi lm in
Phase Four. Here, we’re going to get into the
mind of a character who has always kept herself
carefully hidden. To fi nally learn about the dark
forces that shaped Natasha into the hero she
became. And it does get dark.
Had this fi lm been with us sooner, it most
likely would not have gone there. “I think we
could have done some other version of this
movie [years ago],” Johansson tells Empire
in late February, near the tail-end of post-
production on the fi lm. “It would have
been something much more genre-oriented.”
Indeed, eff orts to make a Black Widow fi lm
pre-date the MCU — X-Men screenwriter David
Hayter was in talks to make one in 2004 before
the deeply disappointing double-whammy of
Elektra and Catwoman temporarily ended the
opportunities for super-women on the big
screen. It has taken 16 years, and ten since
Johansson’s fi rst appearance in the role in Iron
Man 2, for this to come together. Now, Marvel is
rolling the dice on a risky proposition, hoping
that the time has not passed just because the
character has.
The delay, though, is something for which
Johansson is grateful. An earlier take would have
been “something much more circus-y, you
know?” she says. “I don’t know that we would’ve
been able to stay with the character and hold her
in these emotional places like we do this time.”
Years ago, this would have been a movie
about a girl kicking ass. Now it’s going to be
something rather diff erent.
G
iven the long campaign by fans
for a solo outing, and Natasha’s
apparently defi nitive conclusion
in Avengers: Endgame, Johansson
wanted to be sure that there was
a good reason to return to the catsuit, coming
back not for a cash-in but an elegy.
For the one person who still hasn’t seen
Endgame, that was when the ex-assassin-
turned-Avenger fought to the death with
her best buddy to save his life, and half the
universe with him, securing the Soul Stone
by fl inging herself into the void. When she
landed she seemed to have a half-smile on
her face. Who has so much guilt that they
actively fi ght to give up their own life for
someone else’s?
A Black Widow fi lm needed to answer
questions, but it also had to add something
to Natasha’s story. For Johansson it had to have
a sense that she was continuing to deepen the
person she had played seven times already.If a strong enough idea for a solo fi lm had not
presented itself, she would have been at
peace leaving Natasha at the bottom of that
Vormir cliff. “I would have been happy with
the work that I did up until the point of
Endgame,” she says, “and felt like, ‘Okay,
I can let this go.’ Like, ‘I’ve really lived it.’”
Then, though, director Cate Shortland
entered the picture. “It wasn’t until Cate
came on board, and Ned Benson [writer
of The Disappearance Of Eleanor Rigby]
wrote a draft that laid it all out for us, that
you could see what the potential could be,”
says Johansson.
Shortland was crucial in bringing about
the movie that Johansson wanted to make.
An Australian who broke through with the
thoughtful, low-key drama Somersault
in 2004, Shortland has blazed her own
independent trail ever since, via the complex
World War II family tale of Lore and the
sexually charged thriller The Berlin