20 facts you might not know about 'Black Widow'

In 2004, David Hayter struck a deal with Lionsgate to write and direct a film featuring Black Widow. In 2006, Lionsgate dropped the project, and while Hayter and Marvel tried, they couldn’t find another studio to finance the film. Hayter moved on, though he said he was “heartbroken” about it.

When Natasha Romanoff was introduced into the world of Marvel films in 2010’s Iron Man 2 , Johansson wasn’t the first actress Marvel approached. They wanted Emily Blunt for the role, and there were talks. However, Blunt had another gig — costarring in Gulliver’s Travels with Jack Black. Thus, Johansson ended up with the role.

The idea of Black Widow getting a standalone film was bandied about by Kevin Feige as early as 2010. At the time, though, he said the focus was on The Avengers. Through the years, the idea of Black Widow would pop up here and there. By the time Captain America: Civil War was happening, Feige was saying that a Black Widow film was four or five years away.

Before Marvel drilled down and got serious about doing Black Widow, there would occasionally be talks of the film happening once Johansson was established in the MCU. Hayter popped back up at one point. Neil Marshall and Joss Whedon expressed their interests at different times as well. At one point, Nicole Perlman, who co-wrote Guardians of the Galaxy, wrote a treatment for the film, but nothing became of that.

When Marvel got serious about getting the Black Widow movie on screens, writers were brought in to pitch. Jac Schaeffer got the gig. Another writer who pitched was Jessica Gao. In her pitch, She-Hulk was involved, and apparently, at least one executive felt like she was pitching a She-Hulk movie instead of a Black Widow movie. Eventually, Gao would become the head writer for She-Hulk: Attorney at Law.

Once a writer was hired, Marvel looked for a director, and the studio was quite thorough. Evidently, over 65 directors were considered. One of them was Chloe Zhao, who would win an Oscar for Best Director and then direct Eternals for Marvel.

Eventually, Marvel whittled those directors down to three names: Amma Asante, Maggie Betts, and Cate Shortland. Johansson was a fan of Shortland’s film Lore and was the one who reached out to her about directing the film. That sway likely helped, as Shortland did end up getting the directorial job.

Schaeffer wrote a script, and then Shortland was hired to direct, but there was still time to tweak things. Ned Benson was hired to rewrite the script for Black Widow in February 2019. At the time, there were rumors that Black Widow would be the first R-rated MCU movie. Feige, though, quashed those rumors.

After writing the script for the short film Agent Carter and writing a few episodes of the TV show that spawned, Eric Pearson was punching up Marvel movies until he got the chance to write Thor: Ragnarok, which he ended up with co-credit on. This gave Marvel the confidence to have Pearson rewrite Black Widow, which he must have done considerably, as he was given a sole writing credit on the movie. Schaeffer and Benson got "story by" credit.

Johansson, an executive producer on the film, and Feige decided the best time to set Black Widow would be after the events of Captain America: Civil War. Given the character’s death in Avengers: Endgame, a contemporary film was impossible. Early on, there was going to be a scene between Tony Stark and Natasha in the film, but it was nixed. Shortland and Feige decided they didn’t want any other Marvel heroes in the film, so Natasha could be the sole focus and carry the onus of her story.

When it was decided Yelena Bulova would be a key character in Black Widow , Florence Pugh was one of the names considered. As the film got closer to shooting, other names were floated, such as Saoirse Ronan. Then, Fighting with My Family, in which Pugh starred, came out. She got great reviews, so Marvel returned to their initial instincts and cast Pugh as Yelena.

Alexei Shostakov, aka Red Guardian, is played by David Harbour in the film. For the part, Shortland had a couple of interesting character notes for Harbour. She referenced David Brent from the original British version of The Office and Philip Seymour Hoffman’s performance in The Savages. 

Harbour had already grown out his facial hair to shoot the fourth season of Stranger Things, but to play Alexei, he also bulked up to 280 pounds. That was a starting point. As filming progressed, he began to lose weight to shoot the flashback scenes at the start of the film. Harbour lost 60 pounds over the course of filming Black Widow.

In the comics, Taskmaster is a mercenary named Tony Masters. He’s also a dude. In Black Widow, Taskmaster is turned into Antonia Dreykov to tie the character into the film's story. Interestingly, Olga Kurylenko’s turn as Taskmaster was completely missing from any promotional material for the movie.

In the post-credits scene, Julia Louis-Dreyfus appears as Valentina Allegra de Fontaine. This was supposed to be the introduction of the character. However, COVID-19 changed those plans. Things got moved around, and Val first appeared in The Falcon and the Winter Soldier instead. The post-credits scene was added at the behest of Hawkeye showrunner Jonathan Igla. Pearson was charged with writing the scene without being told that Clint Barton was involved.

Black Widow was delayed for a long time due to the COVID-19 pandemic. It was initially scheduled for a May 1, 2020, release but would not hit theaters until July 9, 2021. Notably, Black Widow was the one MCU film simultaneously released in theaters and on Disney+. Home viewers could watch the movie for $30 on the streaming service.

Black Widow made $80.4 million domestically during its opening weekend. That made it the highest-grossing opening weekend domestically during the COVID-19 pandemic. It made $183.7 million domestically, making it the fourth-highest-grossing movie at the domestic box office for 2020. Worldwide box office numbers for 2020 are a little unusual, as Chinese films dominated as China’s theaters were not curtailed by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Disney was doing Premier Access during the pandemic, but the first time they announced revenue was for Black Widow. The company said Black Widow made $67 million in Disney+ first-weekend rentals. That is solid, especially considering that, according to reports, Black Widow was the most-pirated film of the pandemic.

Premier Access may have been convenient for people, but not everybody was happy with it. Johansson sued Disney over the simultaneous release, calling it a breach of contract that kept her from potential box-office bonuses. What followed was a couple of months teeming with bad-faith arguments and general unpleasantness because lawsuits bring out the worst in a lot of people, especially at such a high corporate level where billionaires and millionaires are fighting through high-salaried lawyers. After a few months, Disney and Johansson came to an undisclosed settlement.

Based on Endgame and Johansson's lawsuit, doing another film around Natasha Romanoff would be tricky. However, Shortland has said she would be interested in directing another film in the MCU, including a possible sequel to Black Widow . Rachel Weisz, who plays Melina Vostokoff, has said that she would be interested in playing Vostokoff again as her supervillain alias Iron Maiden. At the very least, Yelena, Alexei, and Taskmaster are all scheduled to appear in Marvel’s 2024 film Thunderbolts.