There are seemingly hundreds of tantalizing things to look forward to in Joe and Anthony Russo's Captain America: The Winter Soldier, from the epic-looking action sequences to cast additions like Anthony Mackie and Robert Redford, but the thing that I am truly most excited to see is the dynamic between Captain America (Chris Evans) and Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson). From a morality perspective, the two characters couldn't be more different while also being considered heroic: Steve Rogers sees good and evil in black and white, while for Natasha Romanoff there are endless shades of grey. More than that, it will just be fascinating to see the development of Black Widow, who has evolved quite a bit since her first appearance in Iron Man 2. But her evolution won't stop at the Captain America sequel.
Marvel Studios President Kevin Feige has confirmed to Total Film (via Comic Book Movie) that the studio has some very big future plans for the Russian spy/S.H.I.E.L.D. agent in the future of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Discussing what we can expect from Black Widow after Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Feige confirmed that the character will have a "very big" role in The Avengers: Age of Ultron, and that he and the other minds behind the franchise have been toying with the idea of giving her her own solo film. "We learn more about her past and learn more about where she came from and how she became in that film," Feige said of Joss Whedon's upcoming movie. "The notion of exploring that even further in her own film would be great, and we have some development work with that."
The studio president also confirmed reports that the end of Captain America: The Winter Soldier will be progressing the Marvel Cinematic Universe in a major way that will have a huge impact on The Avengers: Age of Ultron and Marvel Studios' Phase Three plans beyond it. Said the executive,
"We wanted to change the dynamic of the cinematic universe with this film. We wanted Cap and really the entire cinematic universe to be very different at the end of Winter Solider than it is at the beginning. Therefore when we meet the Avengers at the top of Age of Ultron, it's a very different landscape than we left them at the end of the film film. Partially that's because we love the rhythm that the comic books have developed - each of the characters appear in their runs, occasionally they get together for a big event or crossover series, they part again, and then they come back together again."
We learned quite a bit about Black Widow's history in the last Avengers movie, and it sounds like that could be something that we see a lot more of in the sequel (same goes for Jeremy Renner's Hawkeye). This is not the first time we've heard rumblings about a potential solo film for the character, but it will be interesting to see if it works out this time. Looking into the future, I'm very curious to see how a big Black Widow plotline works in coordination with the battle against Ultron, but that's a question we won't get an answer to for many months. In the meantime, get ready for the Captain America sequel, which arrives on April 4th.
