Some more details have come to light regarding the recent lawsuit filed against Walt Disney Co. by Black Widow star Scarlett Johansson, with Vulture reporting that the actress was "emboldened" to take legal action precisely because there's no chance of her reprising the role of Natasha Romanoff in the MCU.
It's not exactly a major revelation that Johansson won't be back as the Fallen Avenger, since Cate Shortland's film was a prequel leading up to the character being killed-off in Avengers: Endgame. Still, there was always a slim chance she might return for some kind of flashback or dream sequence down the line, and now that the Multiverse has been established, the door may even have been open for an entirely different version of Romanoff to be introduced.
Of course, that's even less likely to happen now that she's suing the company!
Johansson alleges that her contract was breached when the Marvel Studios movie was released on Disney+ and in theaters simultaneously. Disney's response called the filing "sad and distressing in its callous disregard for the horrific and prolonged global effects of the COVID-19 pandemic," which is said to have "shocked" the actress.
The House of Mouse is facing a lot of backlash, but one insider believes they will invoke force majeure (a contractual clause freeing parties from liability or obligation in the face of unforeseeable circumstance) as a defense.
“[Johansson's] view is, ‘Hey, I’m getting f*cked here because I should have made a ton of money and I’m not. That doesn’t mean they get to take advantage of her. And it doesn’t mean that she doesn’t have the right to sue them. And the studio is saying, ‘Well, hey, this is COVID-related. This is a force majeure. This is something that wasn’t anticipated and that we can’t do anything about.’ They’re going to say, ‘Look, if we only put it in theaters, we knew we were going to lose money. We planned on this but we didn’t know how COVID would be.’”
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