Top:Natasha
Romanoff/Black
Widow (Scarlett
Johansson) and
‘sister’ character
Yelena Belova
(Florence Pugh).
Left:Director
Cate Shortland
with David
Harbour, who
plays Alexei
Shostakov/Red
Guardian, on set.
Syndrome. Her protagonists are usually female,
often haunted by guilt, and always deeply
complicated — just right for Natasha. Besides,
Johansson is a long-time fan. “Everything she’s
made is really good and visceral and messy
and vulnerable and frank,” enthuses the actor.
“I needed someone who was also kind of
uncertain of what this was going to be, because
I was, too. I wanted to question stuff .”
There was just one problem: Shortland is
not what you’d call a director for hire. “People
call me with projects and I always say no,”
laughs Shortland. “When Marvel called me and
asked me whether I would like to talk to them,
I thought they were really crazy. Why would
you want to talk to me about a Marvel fi lm?”
But once she met MCU top brass to discuss
the fi lm’s themes, Shortland was intrigued.
A phone call with Johansson amped up her
enthusiasm. “We spoke about the character,
and that was what got me,” says Shortland.
“[She] is a character who has a great heart but a
huge amount of shame; she’s committed crimes
that she feels are unforgiveable, and how do
you, in your life, make up for that? I think a lot
of people relate to her story because she’s not a
perfect person. That was what got me hooked.”
Finally, Black Widow was ready to go.W
ith structure and director
in place, Thor: Ragnarok’s
Eric Pearson started
carving out the script
while Shortland looked
for her cast. The fi rst key was making this a
self-contained story, but not the usual prequel
origin, or a side mission with little emotional
weight to it. Instead it’s a sort of inter-quel, but
one that delves deep into how Natasha was
made. We know she went through hell in her
training by the ‘Red Room’ program that
creates the highly lethal Widows, and that the
fearsome skills she picked up were hard-won.
We know she has “red in her ledger” from her
past crimes, and sense that there was enough
scarlet that it wasn’t entirely wiped out until
she helped save half the actual universe,
though we don’t know quite what she did.
“We really never fi gured out exactly who
she was,” says producer Brian Chapek. “This
movie’s an opportunity. What is the darkest red
in her ledger? Maybe it’s things that we weren’t
exactly expecting.”
“Things we weren’t exactly expecting ”
could be Marvel’s slogan, 23 fi lms in. “[Marvel
boss] Kevin Feige always says, ‘Never
underestimate that element of surprise,’” says
Johansson. “He lives by that motto and he
immediately glommed onto this idea of making
a kind of family fi lm.” Shortland compares
Feige to someone on a higher plane: “Kevin’s
kind of this Yoda character and just goes on
instinct. So the script is always evolving.”
Johansson herself consulted on multiple
drafts of the script, until everything was
razor-sharp. “It was an interesting — at times
very maddening — process.” she says. ❯