In a surprise admission this early, filmmaker Cate Shortland has made it clear that the upcoming “Black Widow” film isn’t just about offering a better look into Scarlett Johansson’s character Natasha Romanoff, but also serves as a launchpad for her successor to the Black Widow moniker – Florence Pugh’s Yelena Belova.
As we know the film will be set between the events of “Captain America: Civil War” and “Avengers: Infinity War,” allowing Natasha one last big screen outing after the character’s demise in “Avengers: Endgame”. Speaking with Empire, Shortland says Marvel’s Kevin Feige deliberately didn’t just want to do a run of the mill prequel origin story:
“[Kevin Feige] realized that the audience would expect an origin story so, of course, we went in the opposite direction. 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.”
So it definitely sounds like Pugh’s character, a sister-figure to Natasha, will eventually take on the title much like Anthony Mackie’s Sam Wilson took over the Captain America mantle. Shortland also spoke about Natasha’s death in ‘Endgame’:
“In Endgame, the fans were upset that Natasha did not have a funeral. 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.”
“Black Widow” is currently scheduled to open in cinemas on November 6th.
