Marvel Studios fans barely had time to grieve the loss of Scarlett Johansson’s Natasha Romanoff in Avengers: Endgame before we all learned that she’ll be back on screen! No, Natasha isn’t returning from the dead. Next summer’s Black Widow movie will be a prequel in the MCU, covering a span of time before the final confrontation with Thanos (Josh Brolin) that’s documented in Avengers: Infinity War and Avengers: Endgame.
That didn’t make dying in Endgame any easier, though. During the press events for San Diego Comic-Con, CinemaBlend was able to interview Scarlett Johansson about the filming on the new Black Widow movie, and we wondered if the knowledge that she would be returning for Black Widow made the filming of her death scene on Vormir any easier. But Johansson admitted:
I thought it was going to be easier. But it actually… at the time, I was standing on that ledge with [Jeremy] Renner, it was really upsetting! It did not make it any easier, at all. And everybody kept saying, ‘What are you so upset about? You’re going to be coming back!’ And I was like, ‘This is terrible.’ It was so, so sad. Like, profoundly sad.
It sounds like Scarlett Johansson didn’t want to say any sort of goodbye to her character, even though it was going to be a temporary farewell. More of a, “See you later, old friend.” But we can understand. Johansson has been playing Black Widow in the MCU for about as long as any other major character outside of Tony Stark’s Iron Man.
Introduced in Jon Favreau’s Iron Man 2, Johansson’s Black Widow has helped to carry the tentpole Avengers series (appearing in all hour Avengers films) while also transitioning over to Joe and Anthony Russo’s Captain America saga, where she fought in Civil War and The Winter Soldier.
Though Natasha ultimately sacrificed herself in Avengers: Endgame to help Hawkeye retrieve the Soul Stone, there are more stories to tell with the character. In San Diego, we had the chance to speak with the entire Black Widow cast, including David Harbour, Rachel Weisz, O-T Fagbenle and Florence Pugh. Watch them all right here:
Cate Shortland’s Black Widow is poised to be the first Phase Four MCU movie, kicking off a slate that will also include Doctor Strange and Thor sequels, as well as the introduction of the Eternals, and Shang-Chi. Widow will open the summer season of 2020, landing in theaters on May 1.
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