The setting of Marvel’s upcoming Black Widow movie has been a widely debated topic for several months now. Even though Marvel wouldn’t officially confirm anything, all discussions and pointers hint at the movie being a prequel, set before the events of Avengers: Infinity War and Avengers: Endgame. Just how many years before though is a matter of intense speculation, with many believing the movie would go back to the 90s to reveal the Black Widow’s ties with the Winter Soldier. It now looks like we have a firm setting if a recent rumor is to go by.
Sebastain Stan has been a guest at the 2019 Italian Comic Con being held for the past few days. He was a part of multiple panels and apparently, word has it that he revealed that the Black Widow movie would be set after the events of Captain America: Civil War. Now the reason this one is being filed as rumor is because it’s just word-of-mouth at this point; even though a video of Stan holding a panel on Day 1 exists, there’s still no video of the Day 2 Panel, which is when Stan made the statement. And the reason that we’re reporting this, despite it being a strong rumor is that it’s been picked up by multiple outlets.
If true though, this could open up the MCU to some rather interesting possibilities. For one, the period between Civil War and Infinity War saw Cap, Widow and Falcon essentially be branded fugitives and be on the run for refusing to sign the Sokovia Accords. The Accords itself was a major event whose fallout we didn’t get to fully explore since Thanos arrived fairly quickly in the next Avengers team-up movie. The Infinity War prequel comic saw the trio spend some time doing missions in Syria, which likely means there’s all sorts of other places they went to before ending up in Infinity War. There’s lots of story to mine here and if successful, future MCU movies could follow a new, interesting trend of plugging in the gaps of what happens in the movies. This means I could finally get my dream movie, an Endgame spin-off exploring what happened after the snap and how did the world deal with it.
News on Marvel’s upcoming projects is relatively sparse at this point so we’ll take what we can get. We do have a strong idea of some upcoming films Marvel plans on making and announcements should be coming soon. Cate Shortland has been tapped to direct Black Widow from a script by Jac Schaeffer. Rob Hardy is also onboard as cinematographer. There are reports of Emma Watson being eyed for a supporting role as well but nothing has been confirmed at this point.
Black Widow should be looking to start filming sometime this year, with an imminent announcement coming most likely during San Diego Comic Con 2019.
