David Harbour joins Black Widow, Rachel Weisz reportedly in talks for a role
Aux Features David Harbour
Stranger Things favorite David Harbour gets to claim another pretty major square on his bingo card of comic books-related gigs: Per The Hollywood Reporter, the actor will be making the jump from Dark Horse Comics’ Hellboy to Marvel Studios’ next superheroine feature, Black Widow. There is no word yet as to whether he will play a friend or foe of Scarlett Johansson’s Natasha Romanoff, but the film is slated to begin production this summer. Aside from Harbour and Johannson, the only other confirmed player is actress Florence Pugh.
The budding cast could be joined by another major name sooner than later. According to a report from Variety, Rachel Weisz is also circling an undisclosed role for the film. If the deal closes, she and her castmates will be directed by Australian filmmaker Cate Shortland.
Both Harbour and Weisz are are currently maintaining glowing careers. Harbour recently wrapped the action thriller Dhaka, in which he stars alongside another Marvel mainstay, Chris Hemsworth. Season three of Stranger Things also begins streaming on Netflix in July. Weisz is still understandably riding high off of her Oscar-nominated turn in The Favourite.
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I can’t tell you how much I enjoy Rachel Weisz, and Rachel Weisz in The Favourite in particular. I will see anything she’s in, which works out great, since I wasn’t going to miss an MCU film in any case.
He could play Red/Steel Guardian, the Russian version of Captain America and Natasha’s ex-husband.Also, in other MCU news, Captain Marvel just crossed the Billion Dollar Mark. So I guess this means that the boycott from some vocal youtubers didn’t accomplish anything except giving free publicity for the movie. But I guess it was all those empty theatres that propped up CM’s Box Office take, right?
That makes sense, though it is interesting that Russian actors or even Americans of Russian descent almost never play Russian roles and nobody ever complains about it. Or maybe they do in Russia and nobody cares in the U.S.
As someone of Russian descent myself, it’s never bothered me. If it were a caucasian actor playing a tartar or something, that might be different. But for the most part, it’s just one type of white person playing another type of white person.I find people get more bent out of shape when it’s a well-educated middle class British actor playing an uneducated lower class British character.
Stupid question but has Scarlett Johansson been confirmed as starring in this? I’ve seen the various articles about who is potentially appearing in the film, but nothing that flat out says Scarlett is.Is there a chance that this is a prequel?
Disney has staked out release dates for a ton of movies through early 2023, mostly Disney live-action and animated films, but there’s a few Marvel spots highlighted in there. The only one listed in 2020 is July 31, which is about a year after Black Widow is starting principal photography, so it seems pretty likely that 2020 Jul 31 will be the Black Widow movie.There’s 3 Marvel movies listed in 2021 and 2022 each, but only one in 2020, which is weird. They could legit be taking a break in the wake of Endgame (Spider-Man: FFH notwithstanding, since that’s at Sony’s behest) and giving Black Widow space all to itself as what will pretty clearly be a standalone adventure. Or maybe they are planning more 2020 releases, but are keeping them ultra-secret until after Endgame.
One of those spots could be for The Eternals, as the production for that film is expected to start in a few months.
Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 was probably originally planned for May 2020, but then they took that date off the calendar after Gunn was fired.
Probably reading too much into it, but I think it’s pretty interesting that Natasha is the only original Avenger to have a solo movie slated for after Endgame, meaning she might be the one of them that survives it.
I’ve heard speculation that she may die in Endgame and the movie would be a prequel (which is likely would at least partly be regardless of her living or not). That said, her dying in Endgame seems like it would lessen audience interest at least a little.
Yeah, if they did that, they’d be breaking a sort of loose storytelling rule. By and large, even the best characters lose interest value for the audience once they are dead. So even as a prequel, they’d probably be running up against some of the same resistance that hit Solo – dead character, dislike of prequel material, etc.
It is a prequel. From Marvel: “Johansson’s Widow is reportedly set before the events of the first Avengers movie and sees the actress reprise the Russian spy-turned-super heroine.”
I’ll just note that “reportedly” is an important word there. Doesn’t mean it necessarily isn’t a prequel, but it’s unconfirmed either way.
Actually, I’m rather wondering if they’re going to let Natasha survive Endgame only to give her a final movie like this before she’s done. Might very well be that she either dies in this movie or passes on the baton to like Yelena Belova or Nadia Pym
technically they’ve greenlit dr strange 2 and black panther 2, as well. i don’t think this is going to be a prequel, either. marvel doesn’t make one-off movies and i can’t imagine they’d find a way to shoehorn in a whole prequel trilogy, unless they made sidequels that take place place in between other movies…which isn’t a terrible idea.
I want him to play Ivan, Natasha’s chauffeur/bodyguard/pal. I actually don’t know who David Harbour is; I just want SOMEone to play Ivan.
Hard to draw too much from characters getting a bump in the comics…but the Winter Guard have popped up in Avengers, and the Red Room was a subject in the Hawkeye & Winter Soldier story from last year (which, in a reverse Bechtel fail, was mostly about the return of Black Widow).The common thread is the character I could see Harbour playing: Ursa Major, the mutant who turns into a bear.
I was thinking the same. He’s totally playing Ursa Major. Well, I hope anyway.
While I am typically a conservative gentleman who, on account of his proper lineage and upbringing, hesitates to comment publicly on the general aesthetic appeal of certain well-known female artists, I would, at the same time, appreciate the opportunity to simply say that I find Rachel Weisz quite fetching. Hmmm. Yes.