BLACK WIDOW Director Confirms the Film Will "Hand The Baton" to Florence Pugh's Yelena Belova
As Marvel fans expected, it looks like Black Widow is going to set Florence Pugh's Yelena Belova up to continue the Black Widow legacy in the MCU. There has been hints and speculation about this, but now director Cate Shortland pretty much confirmed it, saying that the Scarlett Johansson will hand the baton off to her. The filmmaker recently told Empire:
"[Kevin Feige] realised that the audience would expect an origin story so, of course, we went in the opposite direction. And we didn’t know how great Florence Pugh would be. We knew she would be great, but we didn’t know how great. Scarlett is so gracious, like, ‘Oh, I’m handing her the baton.’ So it’s going to propel another female storyline."
That’s pretty exciting, and it’ll be cool to see how her story arc will play out in the MCU. A lot of fans have speculated that her future lies with General "Thunderbolt" Ross and she will be recruited to his Thunderbolts team.
Shortland went on to talk about Natasha not getting a funeral in Avengers: Endgame and how the Black Widow movie will give the character a proper send-off.
"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."
Marvel Studios should be releasing a new trailer for Black Widow soon, so make sure to keep a look-out for that.
Marvel’s spy thriller follows Natasha Romanoff, aka Black Widow, as she confronts the darker parts of her ledger when a dangerous conspiracy with ties to her past arises. Pursued by a force that will stop at nothing to bring her down, Natasha must deal with her history as a spy and the broken relationships left in her wake long before she became an Avenger.
Black Widow will be released in theaters on November 6th, 2020.