Scarlett Johansson Fought Marvel On A Key Scene, She Was Wrong
Scarlett Johansson and Kevin Feige didn't agree on this one scene.
This article is more than 2 years old
When Marvel’s Black Widow (2021) was released simultaneously in theaters and on Disney+ this past summer it was met with both success and its fair share, to put it lightly, of drama. The lawsuit that Scarlett Johansson filed against Disney following the contractual breach that occurred because of how the movie was released, was only just resolved. However, new information has come to light suggesting that there was also some drama behind the scenes between Johansson and Marvel Studio’s president Kevin Feige. Cinema Blend reported that Feige fought hard to keep a scene in Black Widow that Scarlett Johansson and director Cate Shortland didn’t think was necessary.
The scene that initially came into question, arguably, is one of the best scenes in the entire film. It was the moment that Natasha (Scarlett Johansson) and her estranged “family” has reunited at Melina’s (Rachel Weisz) house and ended up sitting down to dinner together in order to discuss how the four of them were going to go up against Dreycov (Ray Winestone). The dinner, although tense, really created more depth for the characters and highlighted that even though their family was based on a lie and that they were all trained sleeper agents, that it wasn’t all fake. This scene clearly demonstrates that despite the circumstances, on some level they all cared for one another and it effectively communicates that to the audience in a way that no other scene does.
The revelation that Scarlett Johansson and Cate Shortland initially planned to ax the scene came out during a conversation that the Black Widow director recently had with Empire. She admitted that Scarlett Johansson and herself vocally disagreed with Feige’s wish to include the scene in the film. However, they ultimately acquiesced and Feige’s intuition ended up being 100-percent right. The Direct noted that Shortland also went on to point out that Feige normally isn’t that adamant about which scenes get to stay or go. She said, “He doesn’t give you many directives, he’s very free… but that was a scene he really felt needed to be in the film.” Feige’s willingness to override creative talent that he clearly trusts given that he doesn’t usually step in is, even more, a testament to how strongly he felt the scene needed to be included in the final cut.
Now that the air has officially been cleared and the drama surrounding Black Widow has officially been resolved, many fans have been wondering when they can expect to see Scarlett Johansson and Disney collaborate again.
In an ironic twist of fate, it looks like Scarlett Johansson might already be contractually obligated to begin working on another Disney movie. In fact, it looks as though Disney Chairman Alan Bergman settled with Scarlett Johansson and paid her the royalties she was owed ahead of her March 2022 trial date just so that her participation in the making of the upcoming film Tower of Terror could be insured. However, even though this might have been a shrewdly orchestrated underlying motivation to make sure Scarlett Johansson stars in the Tower of Terror movie, Johansson has publicly expressed that her relationship with Disney is back to being amicable and she is perfectly content to work with them again.
