Black Widow is the next film from Marvel Studios and hits cinemas on May 1st. Despite this, promotion has been thin on the ground up to this point. That doesn’t mean there isn’t material out there: there was a teaser screened at Disney’s D23 Expo, we’ve seen multiple pictures from the set and photographs of posters at trade events. Now, though, we (finally) have an official piece of promo material.
The red and black poster below was debuted at D23 but only officially released this week and showcases one of Natasha’s costumes for the film. Given that we know that at some point she’ll be switching up to a lighter colored suit, I’m betting this variant is the one we’ll see her in at the start of the movie. Surrounding her on the poster are David Harbour’s Red Guardian, the Russian super-soldier equivalent of Captain America, Florence Pugh’s Yelena Belova, a rival Black Widow and the villainous Taskmaster. Right now we don’t know which actor is behind the mask, but the current fan theory is that it’s Rachel Weisz, a seasoned veteran in the Black Widow program.
However it pans out for these characters, Black Widow comes at an interesting moment for the MCU. The majority of Marvel Studios’ efforts post-Avengers: Endgame are to push forward in a new direction. 2020 will see the introduction of a new pantheon of heroes in The Eternals and Shang-Chi and The Legend of the Ten Rings, with existing characters undergoing big changes in various Disney Plus shows. Meanwhile the movie’s set after Captain America: Civil War and will feature Tony Stark in some form or another. On top of that, we all said our goodbyes to Natasha Romanoff this year.
After Endgame was such a success, will audiences really want to travel back to the status quo of 2016/2017? We’ll find out for sure in May when Black Widow releases. Let’s just hope the release of this poster means an official trailer isn’t far behind.