Marvel is finally pushing through with a standalone film focusing on Black Widow, which will most certainly star Scarlett Johansson, the actress who played her in the previous films.
It's a project most Marvel fans have been anticipating for years. Jac Schaeffer has been hired to work on the film's screenplay. She wrote and directed 2009's TiMER and also penned the screenplay for the forthcoming Dirty Rotten Scoundrels remake, Nasty Women.
As Variety reports, sources say the project is still in its early stages and the film has yet to receive a proper, official greenlight from the studio — but hiring a screenwriter indicates Marvel is seriously pushing for the film to happen.
Marvel president Kevin Feige met with a handful of other candidates before picking Schaeffer, and Marvel executives have also discussed their expectations of what a Black widow standalone film would look like.
Johansson first appeared as Natasha Romanoff — aka Black Widow — in 2010's Iron Man 2 and starred in subsequent films that were part of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Most recently, she appeared alongside Chris Evans in Captain America: Civil War, which was released in 2016. She'll reprise her Black Widow role once again in Avengers: Infinity War, out this May.
Despite Black Widow's prominence in Marvel movies, her character has largely been pushed to supporting roles, with male heroes often at the helm of standalone Marvel superhero films.
Both Feige and Johansson have long said they wanted to do a standalone Black Widow film focusing on the Russian spy that became a superhero. Marvel is set to release Captain Marvel in 2019, its first female-led film starring Academy Award-winning actress Brie Larson. Along with Feige and Johansson, countless number of fans have long prodded Marvel to explore Black Window's origin story.
As for the scribe in question, it'll be her first time working within the Marvel Cinematic Universe. She previously wrote the Disney short animated film Olaf's Frozen Adventure and wrote an alien invasion story that was included in the infamous Black List, an annual listing of the best unmade screenplays in Hollywood. That film is pushing through, apparently, and Anne Hathaway is attached to star.
What would you like to see in a standalone Black Widow film? Should Marvel create an origin story about Natasha Romanoff as the spy? Who do you think should direct the film? As always, feel free to sound off in the comments section below!
