After several delays, Black Widow is finally set to be unleashed next month, but even if COVID-19 hadn't pushed the film back by more than a year, some still look at it as a story that should have been told years ago. As we know, Natasha Romanoff (Scarlett Johansson) sacrificed her life in Avengers: Endgame, which makes Black Widow a prequel as it takes place between Captain America: Civil War and Avengers: Infinity War. During a recent press conference, Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige teased that other Marvel characters could potentially get the same prequel treatment in future movies.
Certainly this film and this story is a particular case for for Natasha. But the notion of exploring the past, present, and future of the MCU is certainly in the cards for all of our characters. This particular story of this particular cast is very personal, very specific to Natasha.
With the multitude of characters who have been introduced in the MCU over the past decade, there's certainly plenty of options in regards to exploring the "past, present, and future" of those characters. However, before you think that Marvel might start devoting an entire movie or Disney+ series to Obadiah Stone's barber, Kevin Feige said that the prequel approach would only happen if the story is compelling enough to justify a movie. "We very specifically knew there was a large period of her life that we didn’t know about, not just her childhood, but this period of time between Civil War and Infinity War," Feige said. "And that period, we felt was was a right to creatively focus on to be able to discover more about our past more about our present. And… give a hint at the at the legacy in the future." The first reactions to Black Widow dropped last week, and as expected, they were rather glowing.
The official synopsis for Black Widow:
Natasha Romanoff aka Black Widow confronts the darker parts of her ledger when a dangerous conspiracy with ties to her past arises. Pursued by a force that will stop at nothing to bring her down, Natasha must deal with her history as a spy and the broken relationships left in her wake long before she became an Avenger.
Black Widow will debut in theaters and on Disney+ with Premier Access on July 9, 2021.