Marvel, Are You Listening? Joss Whedon Wants to Make a Black Widow Movie

Scarlett Johansson as Black Widow in ‘Avengers: Age Of Ultron’ (Photo: Jay Maidment/Disney/Marvel via AP)

The latest endorsement for a Black Widow solo movie is a doozy: Joss Whedon, the writer-director who left Marvel Studios after burn-out from his two Avengers films, says he would come back for super-spy Natasha Romanov (played by Scarlett Johansson). Speaking with IGN at Comic-Con, Whedon said he’d be thrilled to take the reigns of the much-discussed, still-unconfirmed Black Widow film.

“If someone pointed at me and said, ‘Do you want to do a Black Widow movie?’, the answer would be, ‘Duh!’” Whedon told the website. “For two reasons: I think that character really is very interesting and very earthbound, so it’s the kind of action that I got to do less of with somebody like Thor or The Vision… Also, Scarlett Johansson is just delightful. She works really hard but she just spends most of her time cracking me up, so it would be a fun shoot.”

Related: Mark Ruffalo Is Right: We Need More Black Widow Stuff for Girls

Whedon says he’d want his Black Widow movie to be less superhuman and more of a spy thriller — “a good, paranoid, John le Carré-on-crack kind of thing.” That territory already has been mined by Marvel Studios directors Joe and Anthony Russo, who turned Captain America: Winter Soldier into a political thriller before following up with Captain America: Civil War and getting the nod to helm the upcoming Infinity War films. Another thing Whedon and the Russos have in common? Their enthusiasm for a Black Widow solo film.

“It’s a no-brainer, right?” Anthony told Collider in May. “I don’t think [it’ll take] much,” added Joe. “I think it’s just a function of where on the slate it goes. She’s a badass.”

You’d think it would be a no-brainer, especially since a Black Widow movie has been on the table for six years now. Back in 2010, after Johansson’s character made her big-screen debut in Iron Man 2, Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige announced that she’d one day get her own film. “We’ve already started discussions with Scarlett about the idea of a solo movie and have begun putting together concepts,” Feige said during a press conference, “but The Avengers comes first.”

The Avengers did come first — as did two Thor movies, three Captain America movies, another Iron Man movie, and films dedicated to the relatively obscure Guardians of the Galaxy and Ant-Man. Marvel’s slate, which has been announced through 2019, still does not include a Black Widow film. And though the character has appeared in five Marvel films, Feige has consistently claimed that the “timing” just isn’t right for Black Widow to have her own film.

Related: Waiting for the Right Moment for a Female-Led Superhero Movie? How About Now?

Fortunately for Black Widow fans, it appears that Marvel is circling the project a little bit more closely these days. “The [character] creatively and emotionally that we are most committing to doing [as a solo movie] is Black Widow,” Feige told Deadline in May. “We think she’s an amazing character. We think Scarlett Johansson’s portrayal of her is amazing. She’s a lead Avenger and has amazing stories in her own right to tell that we think would be fun to turn into a stand-alone franchise.” If Marvel moves forward with a Black Widow franchise, it wouldn’t debut until at least 2020, at which time the glass ceiling of female-led superhero films will have been broken by Wonder Woman (2017), Captain Marvel (2019), and (arguably) Ant-Man and the Wasp (2018).

But again: Marvel hasn’t actually confirmed a Black Widow solo movie. Until they do, this is all just talk — but the possibility of getting Joss Whedon on board is one more good reason to put a Black Widow franchise on the fast track.

Scarlett Johansson talks Black Widow’s progression through ‘Avengers: Age of Ultron’…

…and then leading into ‘Captain America: Civil War’: