With the upcoming "Black Widow" film, we may be saying goodbye to Scarlett Johansson but we will be getting a whole new female-led storyline to look forward to.
Cate Shortland, the film's director, has more or less said that they will be using the film to bring Florence Pugh's character Yelena Belova front and center.
"[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," said Shortland in a recent interview with Empire magazine.
Pugh's star is certainly rising with receiving an Academy Award nomination earlier this year for her portrayal of Amy March in Greta Gerwig's "Little Women." She has also starred in Ari Aster's "Midsommar", as well as 2016's "Lady Macbeth".
Shortland also spoke about giving Black Widow fans some closure after the death of Natasha in "Avengers: Endgame", saying, "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."
Scarlett Johansson has played the character of Black Widow since her appearance in 2010's "Iron Man", the franchise that began this new era of Marvel films in 2008.
"Black Widow" was set to open in theatres on May 1 but due to the pandemic, the release date was pushed to November 6.
