by Nathaniel R
You can hear that, right? It's a little bit like a loud whisper rather than the standard deafening shouts of mid May but summer movie season is calling. What that will mean this year is anyone's guess with the pandemic having wreaked havoc on viewing habits, moviegoing, and theatrical releases. But we've been inundated with new trailers and now we're getting the usual promotions of character posters. Hollywood hopes you'll go back to the movies. (Or do they, since they're so obsessed with building their streaming services). So let's talk the long delayed not-quite-upon-us Black Widow which hits in July by way of its character posters.
Whenever we're short on time we like to do these 'thoughts i had' and present them unedited as they come though these posters are kind of plain so it's not giving us much to think about...
• We were worried that Black Widow was going to be anti-climactic when it was first announced given that it's a prequel and the character is already dead. Given the long wait for the movie and now a POST July 4th release it's more of the same -- Marvel just kept putting this one off! It remains strange and disappointing and honestly a bit like perpetually leaving money on the table that for all that Scarlett did to liven up The Avengers and Captain America movies -- and it says a lot that the character was as popular as she ended up being without superpowers of her own -- she didn't even get the honor of being Marvel's first female superhero movie.
• I genuinely hope the movie is good to combat its anticlimactic 'afterthought' kind of place in Marvel's global domination plan.
• Do you think Scarlett saw that interview with Emily Blunt where Black Widow was discussed?
Absolutely living for Emily Blunt's face when she's asked about superhero-casting rumors... pic.twitter.com/IIx5vW8vOc
— Nathaniel Rogers (@nathanielr) May 12, 2021
• Do you think she ever wonders what Emily Blunt would have been like in the role? Can you picture Emily doing Marriage Story or Under the Skin or Scarlett doing Edge of Tomorrow or Mary Poppins Returns?
• Why did they give THE STAR, the most boring of the actress poses for these posters? Not that any of the poses are "exciting" mind you but this one is very stiff.
• ...but not stiff with purpose like Florence Pugh's poster. Remember how stiff with purpose Amy was in Little Women? Though that might have been the corsets. Florence earned that Oscar nod. Do you think she should have won?
• What really sells the attitude of this poster is that she's looking down on us with something like wary disdain. Like maybe this gaze is directed at all those people who were leaving nasty comments on her Instagram about her boyfriend. The internet is just toxic with haters and self-righteousness, Florence. Shake it off. You're an adult. Date whomever you'd like and be supremely happy!
• What is this weapon? I thought it was a gun but on a closer inspection it looks like a walking stick... or a camera tripod. Is this poster a selfie?
• I'm embarrassed to share this but I play games on my phone when I'm bored, depressed, or on the subway and I've been playing Marvel's Future Fight and it keeps doing the hard sell to purchase Florence's character but her costume is too dull. Plus if you start buying in-app things for any phone games your bank account is toast; don't do it! But Black Widow is a fun character to play and she has more costumes than anybody else in the game. Kind of like how Scarlett gets more hairstyle changes than anyone else in Marvel Studio's filmography.
• O.T. Fagbenle is so delicious. But if you'd told us how varied and big his career would get after being introduced to him by way of a gay threesome on season 1 of Looking (not remotely his first role but the first time we noticed him) we would not have believed you.
• We though O.T. was playing the villain Task Master but they get separate posters so maybe we're not supposed to know he's the villain. Or maybe he isn't? According to IMDb he's playing a character named "Mason"
• Next up for O.T. is yet another left turn. He'll be playing Barack Obama in that miniseries The First Lady which also stars Michelle Pfeiffer and Viola Davis though he won't have any scenes with Michelle (so it's not an I Could Never Be Your Woman reunion -- yes he was in that barely released Pfeiffer pflick which was also Saoirse Ronan's debut). His scenes in The First Lady will be with Viola Davis and here's a fun factoid: He played Levee, Chadwick Boseman's Oscar-nominated role in Ma Rainey's Black Bottom, in an Olivier-winning revival of the play in London a handful of years ago. The range!
• David Harbour, who we loved even before Stranger Things (shoulda called dibs) via Broadway's Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf 2004 revival and 2008's Revolutionary Road -- is playing Red Guardian. He went from being kidnapped by Russians in Stranger Things to playing one for Marvel. Like O.T. we can't say we saw the size of his career coming. We were worried he'd get stuck in thankless tiny supporting parts like the neighbor's husband or the doctor who gives the star bad news. Just goes to show you what one good role / lucky break can do if you've got the talent to make the most of it.
• Weirdly they gave Rachel Weisz the famous Black Widow pose instead of giving it to Scarlett. Though Scarlett did this pose on an earlier poster but in white leather.
• I have a hard time picturing Rachel Weisz in this kind of movie because she was so uncharacteristically bad in the effects driven Oz the Great and Powerful. On the other hand she definitely gave off haute couture supervillain vibes at the Oscars for The Favourite
Are you excited for Black Widow?
Here's the latest trailer which actually does give us confidence in the movie... at least in the action scenes which is always a big question mark for movies from directors who haven't previously made action films. The film is directed by Cate Shortland who previously made the well-received Australian romantic dramas Somersault (2004) and Lore (2012)