A Black Widow movie was originally in the works back in 2006 with David Hayter, who was set to write & direct the film for Lionsgate before the project was dropped after other female fronted films performed terribly at the box office. Since then, it seemed as though Marvel was constantly talking about making a solo Black Widow film, but those talks never really amounted to anything. With Black Widow playing a huge part in the Marvel films since her debut in Iron Man 2, it seemed strange that Marvel never set out to give the character her own movie.

We do know that Nicole Perlman, who co-wrote Guardians of the Galaxy and is seemingly confirmed to co-write Captain Marvel, did develop a treatment back in 2010/2011, so there was clearly still some interest a few years back.

After the reveal of the Phase Three line-up back in October, where we learned that Black Panther and Captain Marvel were finally getting their own solo movies, fans were curious why, yet again, Black Widow was left off the slate. After the announcement, Kevin Feige went on to say that the reason Black Widow wasn’t getting her own movie in Phase Three was because they had very big plans for the character, and that she acted as a linchpin for the movies.

All of that was understandable, as she did play a large part in Captain America: The Winter Soldier and she will have a larger part in Avengers: Age of Ultron. But that doesn’t mean that Johansson shouldn’t get a chance to lead her own film.

Speaking to Scarlett Johansson during press for Avengers: Age of Ultron, Collider had a chance to talk to her about Black Widow and if there was a chance that she could still get her own standalone movie at some point.

“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.
Her dilemma that she faces it’s a deeply personal one, she has this great, huge, epic kind of calling and now is suddenly going, ‘Wait a minute. I have this epic calling, but I wanna make a choice for myself. I feel like I’ve put in the hours, I should be able to make active choices’ and she inevitably chooses the heroic path and kind of puts her own personal desires and needs aside. Those are things that kind of butt up against each other and interesting things happen when you have a character that’s pulled in many different directions and in my mind there’s room for plenty more Black Widow and certainly more—I think I could see her in a standalone film.”

She also went on to explain that she has spoken to Feige about a series of Black Widow films:

“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.”

Now, again, they’ve been talking about a Black Widow movie for some time now, so that doesn’t mean it is any closer to coming to fruition, but this does make it seem as though it isn’t completely off the table and that’s a good thing.

I don’t know about you guys, but I’d love to see a series of prequel films. Focus on her backstory more, bring in Hawkeye and show us what happened in Budapest.


Scarlett Johansson can next be seen as Black Widow in Avengers: Age of Ultron which opens on May 1st.

Source: Collider