Marvel hires screenwriter to pen to solo adventures of the female Avenger.
After years of idle speculation and even more idle lip service, Marvel has finally taken the first concrete steps towards making the Black Widow solo movie a reality. According to Variety, screenwriter Jac Schaeffer has been hired to draft a script for Natasha Romanov’s solo adventures.
Schaeffer was chosen by Marvel Studios Kevin Feige after interviewing several candidates and sitting down with star Scarlett Johansson to discuss what she would like to see in a Widow solo film. Johansson has played the Russian super-spy in six films so far, and will reprise the character yet again in this summer’s Avengers: Infinity War.
Schaeffer is a Hollywood up-and-comer. Her Black List script The Shower, about an alien invasion that occurs during a baby shower, caught the eye of a-list star Anne Hathaway, who quickly attached herself to the project. She is currently working on Nasty Women, a female led take on the classic screwball comedy Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, also starring Hathaway.
Fans have been clamoring for a Widow solo movie pretty much since the character first appeared in 2010’s Iron Man 2. Their voices have been amplified by a growing list of stars that have also thrown their weight behind the project, including Chris Hemsworth, Anthony Mackie, Chris Evans, the Russo Brothers — and most recently — Thor: Ragnarok director Taika Waititi.
“In all honesty, I reckon I could probably bring something pretty unique to any of the franchises,” Waititi told Gizmodo. “So I’d love to see Black Widow. [I’d like to see] Black Widow as something crazy and a bit funnier than we expect it to be,” he continued. “Because we know her story and it’s very sullen and very dark and her history is very dark. But! What’s the funny version of that? What’s the more entertaining version of that?”
Waititi seems like a crazy choice for a character like Black Widow, but after seeing what he accomplished with Thor, Marvel should probably at least give him some consideration. At any rate, after years of waiting, it finally seems like Black Widow is on the move.