Scarlett Johansson's time as Natasha Romanoff ended in 2019's Avengers: Endgame when the hero sacrificed herself to save the universe. However, in a rather perplexing turn of events, a Black Widow movie followed two years later.
Set between Captain America: Civil War and Avengers: Infinity War, it filled in some of the gaps in Natasha's past and gave the MCU a new Black Widow in Florence Pugh's Yelena Belova.
Yelena alone made the movie a worthwhile cause but Black Widow still wasn't the movie many fans wanted. Scarlett Johansson is an executive producer on Thunderbolts*, likely because of the movie's connections to her 2021 blockbuster but, beyond that, it seems her time as Natasha Romanoff is over.
Still, with Avengers: Doomsday and Avengers: Secret Wars on the horizon, the original Black Widow - or one of her Variants - returning surely isn't outside the realm of possibility. If Johansson herself is to be believed, though, she's well and truly done.
"Natasha is dead. She is dead. She's dead. Okay?" the actor told InStyle. "They just don't want to believe it. They’re like, 'But she could come back!' Look, I think the balance of the entire universe is held in her hand. We’re going to have to let it go. She saved the world. Let her have her hero moment."
During the same interview, Johansson addressed her decision not to take photos with fans if she isn't at an event. "It really offends a lot of people. It doesn't mean I'm not appreciative, of course, that people are fans, or happy to see me. But I always say to people, 'I'm not working.' [And that means] I don't want to be identified as being in this time and place with you. I'm doing my own thing."
The Black Widow movie was released in the few theaters still open during the pandemic and on Disney+'s Premier Access service. Unhappy with the impact on the box office bonuses she'd been guaranteed in her contract, Johansson sued the House of Mouse and eventually reached a settlement.
Her relationship with Marvel Studios remained strong during the whole debacle caused by former Disney CEO Bob Chapek, so we wouldn't be shocked if Johansson has at least a cameo role in one of the upcoming Avengers movies.
Promoting Transformers One last summer, Johansson admitted that she would have liked to better explore Black Widow and Hawkeye's shared past.
"I probably would have gone further back in the Black Widow story," she said. "I would have loved to have seen the Hawkeye, Black Widow, some of that stuff. You see early parts of her life [not that origin]."
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