Black Widow fans are finally getting what they’ve been asking for: A stand-alone superhero movie starring Black Widow, out in theaters and on Disney+ on July 9.
Marvel fans have been clamoring for a stand-alone Black Widow movie for years, and they’re finally getting one. Despite her seemingly permanent send-off in Avengers: Endgame, Natasha Romanoff will return to the big screen to kick off Marvel’s highly anticipated Phase 4. In true superspy fashion, Marvel Studios is keeping many details of Black Widow tightly-guarded secrets, but the company has revealed some footage from the film via trailers and television ads. Here’s everything we know about Black Widow so far, which is currently scheduled to premiere on July 9, 2021. In March, Disney was forced to delay several films due to the coronavirus pandemic, including Black Widow. The studio announced a new release date, November 6, but in September it was reported that Disney is considering another delay for the Marvel Cinematic Universe film. That delay was later confirmed, with Disney pushing the film’s premiere back to May 7, 2021. The tepid box-office response to the few films released in theaters since they began reopening — particularly Christopher Nolan’s Tenet — reportedly pushed Disney to rethink the release. Now, after several changes, Black Widow finally has an official release date. Disney revealed on Twitter that the film will be available in theaters and on Disney+ for an additional fee on July 9. In an interview for Black Widow ‘s tie-in coffee table book, David Harbour revealed some more information about the primary protagonists of the upcoming film. “Now, the connection to him and Black Widow is that they were set up as a spy family in America in the ’90s,” Harbour said. “So, Rachel Weisz’s character, Melina, was sort of the mom, Alexei was the dad, and Natasha and Yelena were their little kids. We see that in the beginning of the movie, and they sort of function as a family.” Somewhat like FX’s The Americans, Black Widow deals with Soviet government-appointed spy families. Now, it’s 20 years since the family split up, and Alexei (Harbour) is trying to get this unit back to functioning as a family and help Natasha find a missing piece of her identity. “Alexei’s had this deep knowledge of Natasha in a certain way that no one else had when she was a kid. He took her from the Red Room and also put her back into the Red Room because he believed in this cause.” In an Imax earnings call, it was casually reported that Black Widow Imax screenings will have 30 minutes of expanded 1.90:1 footage. The film has always been fully intended for a theatrical rather than video-on-demand release, despite the pandemic, and this news about additional footage only affirms that it’s likely a theaters-or-bust scenario. In an interview with Empire, director Cate Shortland confirmed that Black Widow will “hand the baton” to Florence Pugh’s Yelena Belova. This would seem to indicate that Yelena will be the MCU’s Black Widow going forward. “[Kevin Feige] realized that the audience would expect an origin story so, of course, we went in the opposite direction,” She said. “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.” But don’t start planning the MCU’s future in your head just yet. Speaking with Total Film (via Games Radar), Pugh said she would like to “see if people like Yelena” before thinking about additional Marvel movies. “If you get asked to be in a Marvel film, and it was so thrilling and fun and exciting to be in, then, of course, your head goes: ‘Oh, my God. If this is what it’s like, then what else is next?’ If that happens and I am lucky enough that people appreciate my character, that’s an exciting road to go on,” she said.
