Lionsgate has no more interest in making a live-action Black Widow movie in part because other female action films have not done as well as expected at the box office, according to IGN Filmforce.
Due to lackluster box office returns for Aeon Flux and Ultraviolet, for example, the studio will pursue other projects.
X-Men alum David Hayter, who had been attached to write and direct, said: "Marvel and I then spoke to a few other financing entities, but I never felt comfortable that we had found a place that was willing to take the movie, and the character, seriously."
In the comics, Natasha Romanova was a KGB Cold Warrior assigned to seduce and then destroy Iron Man. Instead, she fell in love with Hawkeye and later Daredevil. She was a member of the Avengers and the Champions.
Hayter had planned on Natasha "being given to the KGB at birth. The KGB grooms her to become its ultimate operative. When the U.S.S.R. breaks up, the government tries to kill her as the action moves to present-day New York, where she is a freelance operative," according to IGN Filmforce.
The Black Widow has found new life in animation, however, and was one of the stand out characters of the recent Ultimate Avengers DVD.
