An alternate Black Widow ending might have given Nat a sweeter send-off
A deleted scene sees Scarlett Johansson playing a more wistful side of her MCU superspy
Film News Black Widow
This year’s Black Widow sits at an awkward position in the timeline of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. It’s a flashback movie that never really acknowledges its nature as such—beyond a mid-credits scene that’s as much about trying to set up a future franchise opportunity, as it is a reminder that the film’s lead character died during one of the most successful movies ever made. (For Hawkeye! The indignity.) The film—set between 2016's Civil War and 2018's Infinity War—attempts to bring Natasha Romanoff’s story full-circle, ending on her departing to go help Captain America (and bidding farewell to O-T Fagbenle’s fixer character, who sort of has to stand in for all her other espionage-world friends). But an alternate ending scene for the movie has now been revealed, one that might have made a little more of the fact that we all knew this would be Scarlett Johansson’s final turn as the character (even before her legal disagreements with Disney made that fact a straight-up certainty).
Per Digital Spy, said scene has now become available as Black Widow has made its (earlier than anticipated) move over to a wider digital release, after its period of Disney+ premium exclusivity. Those pseudo-home-releases come complete with bonus features (what a novelty!), including deleted scenes, one of which is pretty clearly either an alternate ending, or a potential supplement to the existing one.
In said scene (titled “Ohio”), Natasha returns to her childhood home in the aftermath of the movie’s events. (She’s got the blond Infinity War hair at this point, too.) As she somberly looks at the house, kids are playing nearby, pretending to be various Avengers. The kid playing as Black Widow herself approaches, and “fires” a Widow’s Bite at Nat, who wistfully returns it. End of scene.
So, yeah: Sweet! Or, at least, a bit sweeter than what we got—touching gently on themes of heroism, inspiration, and redemption—and a better acknowledgment that Black Widow is the real-world ending point for this character, no matter how many magic cliffs she ends up throwing herself off in the already-written future.
19 Comments
this would be Scarlett Johansson’s final turn as the character
Right now, sure.
Given time, anything’s possible.
Come now. It’s not as if comics are famous for retconnings, resurrections, do-overs, and alternate realities, One Punch.
I buy it. I thought they pretty clearly set up Florence Pugh as the new Black Widow going into Phase 4
Florence PughI still say that name is the name of someone who competed in shotput for Britain at the 1920 Antwerp Olympics.
She’s going to be a baddie version though, right? They’re setting up the evil Avengers (Thunderbolts?) with Julia Dreyfus as the evil Nick Fury, recruiting Florence Pugh and Cosplay America, probably with a bit of Abomination and others thrown in.
Peter Jackson had a similar fight over LotR money which had people saying “The Hobbit” would never happen.
And it shouldn’t have happened. So who was really right?
Totally, though the current lawsuit between the two parties in question makes things a tad trickier than usual.
I wish that the post credits scene had purely been Yelena visiting Nat’s grave (potentially with their “parents”) without Julia Louis Dreyfus showing up. I get it’s the MCU formula, but I feel like they blew a great opportunity to have a nice scene paying tribute to Nat. Instead, we got a pretty meh teaser for the Hawkeye show (which I’m looking forward to, but I hate manufactured conflict like the one they’re teasing between Yelena and Clint).
Hasn’t every conflict in literally every work of fiction been manufactured by the author of said work of fiction?
Yeah, but people get mad when it’s manufactured in a way other than the one they want.
Screenwriting advice I received in college: You are contriving everything but you must do it in such a way that the audience doesn’t notice. And mention really important things that you want the audience to retain 2.5 times. Twice probably won’t be enough, but three times will feel like being bludgeoned.
I thought the movie ending with the most brutal murder in Black Widow’s history was pretty good.
I don’t know. It’s sweet, but I’m not sure it fits with the rest of the moving pacing and tonally. It also feels a little self-indulgent. Like this ends with a note of see, she’s really a hero! She does inspire children!I to prefer the theatrical ending. I think it gives Natasha more agency, which isn’t something she’s had a lot of before. In other movies her choice to be a hero is kind of her being in the right place at the right time. She never really makes a choice to be a hero so much as she repeatedly makes choices not to back down when millions of people’s lives are on the line.Plus, I like bringing Mason back in.
It also seems a weird u-turn from some of the themes the film touches on (and frustratingly fails to elaborate on in a braver or more forthright way). The fact she’s a role model for little girls but has actually killed so, so many people in cold blood. The deleted scene seems to roll back on that and say “Actually, it’s good that she’s a role model after all!”
I didn’t think much of the film but the existing ending is better than this one.
Meh. I don’t think it makes a difference. The movie just came out way too late. With the Infinity saga over, the Black Widow movie felt redundant. It should’ve came out around the same time as Captain Marvel. If they had release it a month before the Hawkeye show, then it might have had a better impact. It would be a better introduction of Yelena and smooth transition into the Hawkeye show.
That doesn’t fit with the generic tone they were going for in that film.
One of the worst Marvel movies, unfortunately