Joe Russo teases the direction of Marvel’s Black Widow movie

Last Updated on July 30, 2021

As Marvel's AVENGERS: ENDGAME continues to climb box office charts, Cate Shortland is quietly planning the details of her upcoming BLACK WIDOW film starring Scarlett Johansson as Natasha Romanoff, Marvel's tough-as-nails Russian superspy. While the events of AVENGERS: ENDGAME have left Natasha at something of an impasse for more contemporaty adventures, the film's co-director, Joe Russo, recently teased that Shortland's film would indeed be a prequel, and that it could find us learning the details of the character's top-secret mission to Budapest.

Russo told Comicbook.com as much during the outlet's Game Over: An Evening with Joe Russo interview event. During the session, ComicBook.com's Brandon Davis asked: "so what happened in Budapest?" To which Russo replied, "That's the question, isn't it? Seems like a story for another time." Of course, those who're familiar with the MCU canon will know that Widow's mission to Budapest is a contributing factor to her being regarded as someone not to be f*cked with. Hell, with so much secrecy surrounding that one mission, it could be the job that landed Natasha on the Avenger's radar.

When prodded for more details, Russo revealed that "Scarlet has a movie but it's not…we're not telling linear stories anymore." This of course could be a nod to Marvel's plans to explore its famed Multiverse – a device that allows Marvel to tell stories about worlds within worlds, expanding the MCU infinitesimally. It's either that or Russo was simply referring to Shortland's plan to return to Widow's past. Take your pick.

Throughout the past several years, fans have learned much about Black Widow's tenacity, bravery, and finely-tuned abilities as a badass of the MCU, but we still know little about her past or personal life. Oh sure, we learned her father's name in Endgame, though that nugget feels as if it's just the tip of a very large iceberg. When asked if the breadcrumbs left by Black Widow's arc throughout the Infinity Saga would play a part in the prequel to come, Russo responded by saying, "It's putting seeds in to fulfill our story, and that's what we do in the Marvel Universe is someone comes in and they pick up the threads, right, but there isn't, the grand plan is always 'we have a loose idea of where we can go here', but if you spend a lot of energy thinking about where it goes in the future you're gonna miss the opportunities that are in front of you in the present," Russo said. "If you don't make a really good film, nobody's going to be around for the next one, you know, so we really focus on the present story not on where this is all going."

Much like the character herself, details related to Shortland's BLACK WIDOW appear to be shrouded in mystery at this time. And while Russo's interview does give us a bit more of an idea as to what's to come, we'll have to wait for a more official word as production continues to heat up.

In the meantime, you can catch Johansson's Black Widow in AVENGERS: ENDGAME in theaters now.