In her first solo outing, Scarlett Johansson has taken BLACK WIDOW to the top of the weekend box office with a $215M opening between global theatrical ticket sales and including Disney+ Premier Access, the largest Box Office Opening since the start of the pandemic!
Some things are truly worth waiting for, and this weekend if you’re the star of Marvel Studios’ BLACK WIDOW you can bet that Scarlett Johansson has exhaled, relieved that she can bask in the success of her own solo installment of the Marvel Cinematic Universe franchise of films. In 2010, audiences were perched on the edge of their sets when double-agent Natasha Romanoff was introduced in Iron Man 2 and would return in a big way, as one of the founding members of The Avengers which combined all the major players in one epic adventure!
Johansson’s Black Widow would team up again with Chris Evans’ Captain America for the darkly illuminating second film in the Captain America franchise, as well as play a pivotal role in the subsequent follow-up, which leads right into Black Widow directed by Cate Shortland and produced by Kevin Feige. The film is intended to introduce Phase Four of the studio’s extended film narrative which will continue with sequels featuring Spider-Man and Doctor Stranger coming soon, after the introduction of the next headliner with Marvel Studios’ Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings.
Black Widow stunned this weekend, after being put off from a theatrical release for a year due to the global COVID-19 pandemic. Disney and Marvel Studios felt they wanted to fittingly give the feature a big-screen debut and held out pushing the date to a more appropriately safer time to give audiences a reason to go back to the multiplex. Following suit with the current climate of multi-platforming options the decision was also given to allow Premier Access to Disney+ subscribers, adding $60M to the impressive global ticket sales.
No Endgame In Sight
It is bittersweet that the Black Widow did make the ultimate sacrifice in the blockbuster Avengers: Endgame effectively wrapping up Johansson’s arc in any “in continuity” adventures but opening the door wide open for Florence Pugh who portrays Yelena Belova, and as fans of the Marvel Comics know, Yelena assumes the mantle of the Black Widow when Natasha is reportedly killed. That certainly does not mean that a sequel to Black Widow couldn’t feature flashbacks with Johansson back in the spotlight or as is often the case in the comics, returns from the dead!
Anything is possible, especially after the largest domestic box office opening since the pandemic began, and the largest domestic opening for the film Star Wars Episode IX: The Rise of Skywalker in 2019. Black Widow also marks the highest domestic opening weekend for an MCU film origin story after the successes of Black Panther and Captain Marvel (both of which have sequels currently in pre-production, and the second was the first in the MCU series to feature a female lead in the top line. Marvel proves that it has its pulse and the blockbuster, and inspiring great optimism that movies are back on track!
Marvel Studios Black Widow | starring Scarlett Johansson is playing now in theaters now and can also be experienced through Disney+ with Premiere Access.
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