First Teaser For 'Black Widow' Solo Film Drops & We're Already Sweating!

When we were shown footage from the upcoming Black Widow solo movie at D23 Expo back in August, the main thought running through my head is that it didn’t look like a Marvel movie – or indeed a superhero movie – at all. It came off as a legit espionage/spy thriller. Which I guess stands to reason, considering the character of Natasha Romanoff (played by Scarlett Johansson) is just that. Not a superhero in the sense that she possesses any supernatural physical abilities, but her skills in hand-to-hand combat and weaponry mean that she can handle herself against power-wielding baddies just as well as any of the Avengers.

The Bad News: we lost our favorite redheaded Russian about halfway through Avengers: Endgame, having sacrificed herself so that her long-time partner Hawkeye (Jeremy Renner) could retrieve the Soul Stone and defeat Thanos. Because her death was not part of Thanos’s “snap”, she could not be resurrected when it was reversed. She was one of only a small handful of casualties during the Infinity War, and as one of the OG Avengers, it came as quite a shock. Especially since she had not even gotten her own solo film, as many of her male Avengers colleagues have. And that brings me to…

The Good News: better late than never! Yes, Black Widow might be gone in the current timeline, but that’s not stopping Marvel Studios from continuing to explore her story. So all y’all Nat Stans, fear not, because more Romanoff is coming your way!

Early this morning, Marvel finally publicly released the first teaser for Black Widow, which takes place after Captain America: Civil War in the MCU timeline. As you might remember from that film, Natasha’s loyalties were strained in the internal battle among the Avengers lead by Captain America (Chris Evans) versus Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.). In this film, she goes off on her own to confront her past and some "unfinished business", which includes having to team up with old allies from her pre-Avengers days. One of these is Yelena Belova (played by 2019 breakout star Florence Pugh), who Natasha refers to as “sis” in the trailer – although it should be noted that they are not actually sisters, merely members of the same Soviet training facility. They also share the Black Widow moniker.

Joining them on this adventure is the overly-eager Alexei Shostakov (David Harbour), AKA Red Guardian, a super-soldier who is basically like the Russian version of Captain America, and Melina (Rachel Weisz), another spy who uses the code name Black Widow. Together, they will have to defeat a formidable enemy, as one does in these movies.

The film is helmed by Australian director Cate Shortland, who only has 3 other features under her belt, including a romance, a period drama, and a psychological thriller. It seems the latter (Berlin Syndrome) will be most relevant to her work on Black Widow, and if the kitchen fight scene between Natasha and Yelena (which we saw in its entirety at D23) is any indication, this movie is going to be quite the ride!

Black Widow hits theatres in May 2020.