Avengers: Endgame was the end of the road for a number of our favorite Marvel Cinematic Universe characters. However, while we had to say goodbye to Vision and Black Widow, only Tony Stark got a real on-screen funeral. Some fans were disappointed that Black Widow, who had been part of the MCU for almost as long as Iron Man himself, didn't get a better send off, but the director of the Black Widow movie thinks that the lack of goodbye in Endgame works to the benefit of the new film, as Black Widow itself will be able to be the real goodbye to Natasha Romanoff.
Director Cate Shortland recently told Empire that, while Black Widow might be set prior to the events of the big Avengers finale, it will still allow fans and characters alike to process their grief at the loss of Nat. As Shortland explains...
In Endgame, the fans were upset that Natasha did not have a funeral. Whereas Scarlett, when I spoke to her about it, said Natasha wouldn’t have wanted a funeral. She’s too private, and anyway, people don’t really know who she is. So what we did in this film was allow the ending to be the grief the individuals felt, rather than a big public outpouring. I think that’s a fitting ending for her.
Over the course of more than 10 years the audience followed Tony Stark, if not from the beginning, then from his rebirth as a new person. We knew the character intimately, which is why the loss of him hits so hard. Cate Shortland has a point that such is just not the case with Natasha Romanoff. We don't actually know her that well, and neither do most of the characters in the films.
It seems that we still won't be seeing any sort of massive emotional farewell in Black Widow, but there's a feeling that something like that just wouldn't fit with the character. Still, the new movie will still provide moments of individual grief. And one assumes some of those individuals will be in the audience.
In its own way, it's looking like WandaVision, the upcoming Disney+ series may offer similar closure for fans, and for Wanda, as it pertains the death of Vision.
The closure MCU fans have been waiting for will have to wait a while longer. The movie was originally set for release in May, but due to theater closures, the movie was delayed until November, taking over the slot belonging to the next Marvel movie, The Eternals. Every Marvel film is now slated for the release date after the one it was previously scheduled for.
It's now been over a year since Phase 3 officially came to a close with Spider-Man: Far From Home, it feels like it's been so much longer. It makes most fans probably miss Black Widow even more than they already did. Black Widow will, hopefully, arrive in theaters November 6.
