Natasha Romanov needs to be a self-actualized person, even though her enemies will occasionally say she isn't. She's gone from working for whoever was calling the shots before (we still don't know if it was post-Soviet Russia or someone else) to working for Nick Fury.
Natasha: I've got red in my ledger. I want to wipe it out.
Yelena: And killing the people that Nick Fury tells you to does that? I didn't even know the soul had a ledger.
Casting ideas:
Contessa Valentina Allegra DeFontaine (Val for short): Elizabeth Reaser. I'm neither a Twi-Hard nor a Twi-Hater (Twi-Neutral?) but I think she could work as the SHIELD agent.
Yelena Belova, the new Black Widow: Chloe Grace Moretz. Some fans want Amber Heard, but I like the idea of Yelena being close to a child spy.
This conflict is perfect for making Natasha deal with her own origin and training. Someone to rescue and protect and get betrayed by. So necessary.
I think anyone can play Red Guardian really, but I'd like to see him in the film as the main antagonist. Get into Natasha's heart a bit. Especially if she thinks he's dead. I'd love to steal Crimson Dynamo from Iron Man too, since IM kinda already dealt with him in Whiplash.
I think the biggest challenge for a Black Widow film will be adding the superhero flair in a creative and surprising way to delineate it from whatever spy girl films we all know about. Perhaps a supporting role for Hulk. Perhaps some hard core spy-fi.
"Development work"?
I'm intrigued, Mr. Feige. Very intrigued.
It doesn't mean new developments, it just means they've done some development on it before, which is true. It seems like its trying to assure people rather than announce any actual intention. It's clear the course they've charted for her is as a supporting character.
she's not that big. Cho just made her head too small. anyways, she's teaching those unconscious SHIELD agents around her self-defense.
This must be the "how to recover from a savage beating" lesson.
If the success of recent films like Catching Fire and Frozen is any indication, having a female lead in one's film does not hinder said film's success.
If they can get a great scriptwriter who knows how to write great female, and a great director who knows how to direct them (i.e.-- someone like Joss Whedon or Joss Whedon himself), and then market it well (it's Marvel Studios, so no biggie), it should have no problem being successful at the box office.
Here's the problem with superheroine movies from a studio perspective: why do I need a great uniquely talented scriptwriter and a great director for a film just to make it successful? With other types of characters, that combo is a box office slam dunk, like Avengers, or Inception or Star Trek. But you need Avengers talent just to make Black Widow successful, why not just throw her in the Captain America franchise and use your Avengers-level talent on Avengers where it'll make you more money? Black Widow is more popular now than she ever would have been if Whedon was on Widow instead of Avengers. So it works out for the character too.
A female film needs something significant 'going for it' in order for it to make financial and marketing sense to put the top talent on it, which we all seem to agree is necessary to make a great female-led film, even though it isn't to make a great male-led film. For Frozen, you have the whole Disney machine, in addition to it being Pixar influenced, so you know, they have the talent to make mute robots interesting, and they are on hand for every 3D Disney princess, regardless. That's a huge pair of boons
doh
for Frozen.
The Hunger Games is not just riding on the popularity of a book series with tons of good word of mouth before anyone is cast, but it's riding on a series of series of popular films from book series, from Harry Potter through Twilight. And it's not just the popularity of the book series, it's that you already have a well written female characters, so you don't have to be one of the few guys who can write a good female character in order to make a good movie out of her story.
This is on top of there being almost nothing going against these films, that they are extremely unique in the marketplace made by up and coming actors of excessive talent. They deal with the 'girl action movies suck' issue by not being action movie franchises. Catching fire ratcheted up the action, but HG1 only had what, two short fight scenes?
Black Widow, all she has going for her is the Marvel Machine and her Avengers connection. Beyond that, she's just Alias/Salt/Nikita/Kim Possible which is just a Female Bond/Bourne/Bauer/etc. She doesn't bring anything significantly new to the table beyond super powers she herself doesn't have. That's something that has to be overcome, that takes a talented writer... a writer who probably would meet with more success and popularity writing Dr. Strange, even if he is one of the few guys who can write a good heroine.
Widow doesn't have the comics going for her, despite being a very old character, she doesn't have any great solo stories to her credit. It's the same problem Wonder Woman has, honestly. Been around a long time, and been very supportive the whole while.
This is not to say they shouldn't try or they can't do it. But let's not assume that Marvel Studios can do what Frozen or Hunger Games did, much less end up with the same results.