Last month, audiences worldwide got a special preview of Taskmaster action in the first trailer for Cate Shortland's Black Widow... but said action consisted of him simply aiming a bow and arrow and briefly squaring off against David Harbour's Red Guardian. It was a nice tease, but now we have an even better look at one of the primary antagonists of the upcoming blockbuster via a newly released preview!
Check it out below!
When you take into consideration all of the events that have transpired between midnight and now, today has been a pretty damn good day for Black Widow. Things started off good for the film in the morning, albeit indirectly, courtesy of the Academy Awards nominations announcement. Actresses starring in the next Marvel Studios feature – namely Scarlett Johansson and Florence Pugh – earned a total of three Oscar nods between them for their work in awesome movies including Jojo Rabbit, Marriage Story, and Little Women. That gives the marketing team a nice little angle to play in promotion in the coming weeks (more if either of them wind up taking home trophies), but as seen in the footage above that dropped tonight, the material doesn't really need any kind of extra advantages.
It took a while to arrive, but the latest look at the first Phase 4 Marvel Studios film dropped during the National Championship game between the Clemson Tigers and the LSU Tigers (yup, Tigers vs. Tigers), and it has us pretty damn pumped for the upcoming blockbuster. As highlighted above, some of the best material features Black Widow facing off against Taskmaster – a villain who has an ability called photographic reflexes, which is to say that he can instantly mimic any maneuver he witnesses, either in person or on video. This is why there is that moment where he and the titular heroine leap up in mirrored fashion.
Black Widow is set between the events of Captain America: Civil War and Avengers: Infinity War, and starts with Natasha Romanoff (Scarlett Johansson) on the run from international authorities after betraying her allegiance to the Sokovia Accords. The chase leads her to Budapest, where she not only reunites with a younger colleague, Yelena (Florence Pugh), but gets embroiled in a plot tied to the training program that turned her into an assassin as a child. In order to complete her mission, she needs more allies, and winds up enlisting the help of Alexei Shostakov a.k.a. Red Guardian (David Harbour) and Melina (Rachel Weisz – who has already won an Academy Award).
If it feels like the gap between Marvel Studios releases has been longer than usual, you're not wrong, as the ninth month gap we're currently in is the biggest between films since 2012/2013 and the wait for Shane Black's Iron Man 3 after Joss Whedon's The Avengers. Fortunately the lull is almost at an end, as the film will be playing in theaters worldwide in less than five months.
Black Widow will be in wide release here in America starting on May 1st, and be sure to stay tuned here on CinemaBlend between now and then, as we'll have plenty of updates and behind the scenes stories coming your way in the weeks and months ahead.
