Black Widow is still a long way off, but the hope is that we'll actually be able to watch the Marvel Studios movie on the big screen this November as planned. Right now, COVID-19 cases in the US are going through the roof as attempts are made to kickstart the economy and people protest being told to wear masks in order to slow the spread of the virus.
As a result, we're not sure what the plan is for the Marvel Comics adaptation, but director Cate Shortland has now dropped some big hints about the future of Black Widow in the MCU.
"[Kevin Feige] realised that the audience would expect an origin story so, of course, we went in the opposite direction," the filmmaker tells Empire. "And we didn’t know how great Florence Pugh would be. We knew she would be great, but we didn’t know how great. Scarlett is so gracious, like, ‘Oh, I’m handing her the baton.’ So it’s going to propel another female storyline."
This appears to confirm speculation that the "Black Widow" mantle will pass to Yelena Belova, and while Natasha Romanoff was wearing her vest in Avengers: Infinity War, that could be explained by her mistakenly thinking her "sister" has died (when, in reality, she's been taken into custody by General "Thunderbolt" Ross and recruited to his Thunderbolts team).
That all just speculation, of course, but one thing we do know is that Natasha is getting a proper send-off in Black Widow. "In Endgame, the fans were upset that Natasha did not have a funeral," Shortland says. "Whereas Scarlett, when I spoke to her about it, said Natasha wouldn’t have wanted a funeral."
"She’s too private, and anyway, people don’t really know who she is. So what we did in this film was allow the ending to be the grief the individuals felt, rather than a big public outpouring. I think that’s a fitting ending for her."
Two new trailers were recently classified for Black Widow, so chances are a new look at the movie is coming our way at some point in the next few weeks. Ultimately, it may depend if August's releases now end up being pushed into September, because if that happens, Black Widow could slip into 2021.