Marvel Studios and Disney waiting over a full year to release Scarlett Johansson’s Black Widow is likely going to pay off big time for the studio, as the film is said to have already earned nearly $40 million ($39.5 million) on Friday at the domestic box office and it’s a good start considering the solo film’s $200 million budget.
Estimates from Deadline now place the full weekend opening potentially heading towards $80-90 million, which will give the film a pandemic era box office record.
Collider also recently spoke with Red Guardian actor David Harbour about plans to see his Russian character making a return to the MCU in the not too distant future.
“There is some chatter around certain things. We were pretty focused on just this. They also have a lot of stuff in the pipe that, it seems like in this particular phase, there’s a lot of different… There’s like Eternals…There’s different elements to this universe that I think they’re branching out at this point until they start to do this. I knew I wasn’t involved in that branch. The discussions were… They didn’t really give a sense of what was up next. It was more just really focused on this movie, and some speculation of possibilities,” David Harbour responded to the question of his character Red Guardian’s potential return in the future.
Stuff like a Thunderbolts project or even Anthony Mackie’s Captain American 4 would be a good bet to make for Red Guardians’ return unless Marvel potentially considers giving Alexei Shostakov a solo Disney+ series.
Director Cate Shortland has talked up the idea of returning for a Black Widow sequel focusing on “other characters,” in theory, that could be a way to have him return by including Alexei alongside Florence Pugh’s Yelena Belova as the new Black Widow.
“I think following a different character, yes. I think Scarlett is really happy that she’s leaving the party, you know, and she’s not the last to leave. She decided she wanted to go. And I don’t think she would want to come back at the moment,” the filmmaker told the Radio Times when asked about the possibility of a sequel and alluding to Florence Pugh’s Yelena Belova taking over the mantle.
As it stands, Marvel hasn’t announced plans for Black Widow 2. However, Pugh’s Yelena will appear in the Hawkeye series that will likely drop on Disney+ later in the year.
BLACK WIDOW – In Black Widow, Natasha Romanoff 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. Directed by Cate Shortland and produced by Kevin Feige, the movie stars Scarlett Johansson reprising her role as Natasha Romanoff. Florence Pugh stars as Yelena Belova, David Harbour as Alexei Shostakov aka Red Guardian, and Rachel Weisz as Melina Vostokoff.
THE RONIN 