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As Marvel Studios nears the theatrical release of “The Fantastic Four: First Steps,” which will serve as the kickoff of the MCU’s Phase Six (thus closing the book on the franchise’s dismal Phase Five), fans can’t help but be laser focused on next year’s “Avengers: Doomsday.” It’s not that the quartet’s first official appearance in the MCU looks dire; it’s just that Marvel, smarting from the franchise-hobbling failures of “The Marvels” and “Captain America: Brave New World,” sweatily upstaged their summer 2025 slate last March with a bizarre PR stunt involving a ridiculous number of chairs.
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This is not the Marvel Studios of the 2010s, where almost every single movie was a potential billion-dollar event. With the film business still struggling to recover from the COVID-19 stoppage and the (absolutely necessary) union strikes, studios need to go above and beyond to convince potential ticket buyers that their latest theatrical offering is worthy of a trip outside the house. We’ve seen signs of encouragement from the box office successes of “Sinners” and “A Minecraft Movie,” and it’s possible that Marvel’s “Thunderbolts*” will be a leggy blockbuster (what with its A- CinemaScore). But even if “Thunderbolts*” and “The Fantastic Four: First Steps” deliver, they’re unlikely to sniff $1 billion. Yes, “Deadpool & Wolverine” crossed the 10-figure threshold, but that was an inherited windfall from 20th Century Fox.
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The MCU’s future might just hinge on “Avengers: Doomsday” making “Avengers: Endgame” $2 billion at the worldwide box office. This means it’s an all-hands-on-deck event film. If you were in a Marvel movie and still have a pulse, you should be on call. But there were a handful of names conspicuously missing from the Day of Chairs. One of the actors most notably absent from this roll call was Scarlett Johansson. Is Natasha Romanoff/Black Widow really, truly dead in the Marvel Cinematic Universe?
The MCU fate of Black Widow is up in the air
Marvel Studios has always been cagey about narrative and cast reveals, but Scarlett Johansson’s run as Black Widow felt like it died when the actor sued Disney for breach of contract in 2021. There was a settlement (for an undisclosed amount), and both parties were quick to clarify that all was resolved amicably, but that’s PR. This could’ve easily been the big kiss-off.
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Beyond this speculation, there’s the rather salient fact that Romanoff died a no-bones-about-it death in “Avengers: Endgame.” Obviously, no one is ever truly dead in comic books, but movies are different in that a) there isn’t a monthly issue demand to be satisfied, which means b) the stakes are much, much higher. We’re only going to get so many of these films. If death is fungible, the consequences are whatever.
We won’t know for sure if Black Widow is as dead as Julius Caesar until the credits roll on “Avengers: Secret World,” but we can check in with “Thunderbolts*” screenwriter Drew Pearson, who was asked by The Hollywood Reporter if he thinks Johansson could return to the MCU fold. Per the longtime in-house Marvel scribe:
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“I will preface by saying that I have no idea, but I don’t think so. I feel like her end in [‘Avengers: Endgame’] and then her epilogue with [‘Black Widow’] were so lovely. So I would be surprised, but I know nothing about that. I have very little knowledge of what’s going on with ‘Doomsday’ right now.”
Pearson might not be working on “Avengers: Doomsday,” but he knows how the MCU sausage gets made. So if he thinks Black Widow is done … Well, that means nothing. He’s Team Marvel. He could definitely be playing ball, which is cool because I don’t want to be spoiled on what could be one of the franchise’s most unexpected curtain calls. Solana Token Creator
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