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Fans of The Avenger films know Scarlett Johansson’s iconic Black Widow character very well. The Russian spy has been part of the live-action Avengers movies from the beginning, and is the only Avengers character, save for Hawkeye, to not star in her own film. That will all change soon, as Black Widow is finally being adapted for live action. The movie will be helmed by Cate Shortland, the Aussie director famous for films like Lore and Somersault.
One exciting revelation that has come to light suggests that the movie will be set before the events of the first Avengers movie. Introduced in Marvel comics in 1964, Natasha Romanoff (Black Widow) the Russian spy initially acted as an antagonist for the Avengers before defecting to their side and eventually joining the team. Black Widow has mostly been linked in comics with Daredevil and Spiderman before she became the lead in her own comic series.
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In the comics Romanoff grew up in a top-secret USSR program called “the Black Widows” program where orphan girls were brainwashed and trained as an agent in the ‘Red Room’ facility. While there’s much that the live action adaptation of the film will no doubt ret-con, there are certain things that we know from the first two avengers films, have been kept the same.
In the films, she is the former member of the KGB and one of the founders of the Avengers. She then became a very efficient S.H.I.E.L.D agent. In Age of Ultron, she revealed that the KGB had trained her in the Red Room and they had gone as far as sterilizing her. Her ruthlessness and excellent reputation in the world of assassins earned her the title ‘Black Widow’. Because of how skilled she was becoming S.H.I.E.L.D (which is the government agency in the Marvel world that deals with threats that CIA can’t handle such as aliens etc).
Because it was mentioned that Black Widow and Hawkeye are good friends and it was him who recruited her to S.H.I.E.L.D it would make sense for him to show up in her upcoming film. With Wonder Woman being a huge success, this was the time to make a female superhero film and while Marvel’s first female superhero film will be Captain Marvel, Black Widow will be another significant film. After all fans of superhero films have seen Natasha Romanoff more than Wonder Woman and Captain Marvel.
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Black Widow is expected by many to be Marvel’s attempt at a James Bond franchise of sorts, after all, the assassin is the most grounded character from the roster of Avengers. The film being set before Avengers opens the film up for a world of possibilities and it also gives us a chance to perhaps see one or two of the characters who will die in Avengers 4. It’s likely that the film will be similar to Spider-man: Homecoming in not dwelling too much on how the hero became a hero and more on the story.
The filming for this project could begin sooner than initially expected now that Scarlett Johansson has withdrawn from what would have been her next film, Rub & Tug, in the wake of the backlash she received. Regardless of what the storyline is, fans are just stoked to finally learn more about Black Widow. Let’s hope that we some more amazing moments when Avengers 4 rolls out next year.