NAT'S LANDING

SCARLETT JOHANSSON’S FIRST SOLO ADVENTURE AS BLACK WIDOW FINALLY TAKES FLIGHT – IN WAYS MCU FANS MAY NOT BE EXPECTING

- TARA BENNETT

FOR NATASHA ROMANOFF (AKA BLACK Widow), finally getting her solo cinematic day in the sun has been a long time coming. The character, as played by Scarlett Johansson, was first introduced 11 years ago in Iron Man 2 and went on to become a primary player in six more Marvel Cinematic Universe films (including all four Avengers installments). For pretty much that entire time, audiences were asking for Romanoff’s own showcase movie that might shed some light on the enigmatic, Russian-trained spy/assassin who gets the job done without the benefit of superpowers.

A Black Widow movie became a reality by 2018, with a first-pass script in hand and a very broad search for the studio’s first solo female director to helm it. At San Diego Comic Con in July 2019, Marvel Studios President Kevin Feige formally announced Johansson, director Cate Shortland, and a supporting cast including Florence Pugh, Rachel Weisz and David Harbour, along with a 1 May 2020 release date that would formally open Phase 4 of the MCU.

Then Covid-19 happened, and MCU releases ground to a halt for the first time in a decade. By then, Romanoff had already experienced her very real demise in Avengers: Endgame and this prequel story set post-Avengers: Civil War began to feel ever tardier in terms of the pop culture zeitgeist as it was bumped to November 2020 and then May 2021, finally receiving a firm global release commitment of July 2021.

While director Cate Shortland finished her work on