Heading into Avengers: Endgame, most fans of the Marvel Cinematic Universe were fully aware that not all of Earth’s Mightiest Heroes were going to make it out alive, especially when Infinity War had concluded with half of the roster getting wiped out with one click of Thanos’ fingers, but that did nothing to lessen the emotional impact of seeing longtime favorites Iron Man and Black Widow meet their end.
Natasha Romanoff may have bitten the dust in the main timeline, but Scarlett Johansson will draw a line under her run in the MCU by finally getting the chance to headline her own solo movie when the longest gap between new installments in a decade ends with the November release of Black Widow, a prequel set just after the events of Captain America: Civil War.
In a recent interview, Johansson admitted that she actually wasn’t surprised to find out that she was being written out of the franchise, but after a decade in the role, it wasn’t easy to come to terms with the fact that she would no longer be a part of the ensemble after playing Natasha for so long.
“It was before shooting Infinity War that I was made aware of what was going to happen in Endgame. Kevin Feige called me and said, ‘Look, obviously we’re at a place where there’s going to be big sacrifices and big losses’. We had all anticipated that. So it didn’t seem out of character. It kind of made sense to me, I guess, even though I was sad about it. But after I hung up the phone I remember I thought, ‘Okay, I guess it’s me’. And it took me a minute to process it. It was bittersweet, but it was not a shock.”
As the actress says, given the stakes involved in Avengers: Endgame, it would have been a major cop-out on Marvel’s part if the status quo hadn’t changed in the slightest, as well as severely reducing the dramatic and narrative stakes for the rest of the MCU’s output going forward if things had just returned to normal after the threat of Thanos was vanquished. Natasha might be gone now, but fans have one final chance to say goodbye in Black Widow before Yelena Belova picks up the mantle and assumes the codename on a permanent basis.