AGAINST THE ODDS

THE MARVEL CINEMATIC Universe is like a shark: always moving forward. As Phase Four begins, the next few films that Marvel has planned — the cosmic shenanigans of The Eternals, the mysticism of Shang-Chi And The Legend Of The Ten Rings, the reportedly horror-skewed Doctor Strange In The Multiverse Of Madness and Thor’s, er, full-body Jane Foster makeover in Love And Thunder — all seem designed to push the envelope and drive the already-sprawling universe in new directions

But sometimes, to go forwards, you have to go backwards. Black Widow, kicking off this new era, is reversing. Set between the Wars Civil and Infinity, Natasha Romanoff’s much-anticipated solo outing is an outlier: Marvel is turning back the clock after a major character’s death. This is not business as usual. This film shouldn’t exist.

For that reason, “backwards” might be the perfect choice of direction for the first film in Phase Four. Here, we’re going to get into the mind of a character who has always kept herself carefully hidden. To finally learn about the dark forces that shaped Natasha into the hero she became. And it does get dark.

Had this film been with us sooner, it most likely would not have gone there. “I think we could have done some other version of this movie [years ago],” Johansson tells Empire in late February, near the tail-end of post-production on the film. “It would have been something much more genre-oriented.”

Indeed, efforts to make a Black Widow film pre-date the MCU — screenwriter David Hayter was in talks to make one in 2004 before the deeply disappointing double-whammy of and temporarily ended the opportunities for super-women on the big screen. It has taken 16 years, and ten since Johansson’s first, for this to come together. Now, Marvel is rolling the dice on a risky proposition, hoping that the time has not passed just because the character has.