'Black Widow' Director Candidates Revealed

Spinning out of the news that Jessica Jones veteran S.J. Clarkson will be the first woman ever to direct a Star Trek movie, The Hollywood Reporter claims to have intel on the search for a filmmaker to bring Scarlett Johansson's Black Widow to solo-movie life.

According to their report, Marvel Studios is focusing its atentions on female directors for Black Widow, and has met with Deniz Gamze (the Turkish movie Mustang), Chloe Zhao (The Rider) and Amma Asante (A United Kingdom).

That should not be considered a complete short list, though, since according to THR Marvel has also met with several other filmmakers and the search is ongoing.

Marvel has drawn criticism for their lack of diversity in front of and behind the camera. While Black Panther featured a mostly-nonwhite cast and was directed by a person of color, and Marvel has a female-led solo outing coming up for Captain Marvel (directed by Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck), questions about their commitment to diverse storytelling have continued to follow the studio -- who ironically once used Star Trek producer J.J. Abrams as a defense against such critiques.

"I don't think J.J. Abrams or the Star Wars people — I have no idea — but my guess is that they were not swayed by any backlash," Feige said. "We're not going to be swayed by the backlash. We're going to keep bringing the movies out the way we envision it and the way we believe in it — and that includes diversity in all of the active films. And certainly, on our development slate of many of the characters...and always being conscious of that. The great thing for us is the comics have been conscious of that through the decades and have been rather pioneering in that over the years."

There is no specific date yet for the Black Widow movie -- which may or may not have to be a prequel, depending on if she is a casualty of tonight's Avengers: Infinity War.

Avengers: Infinity War, Marvel's biggest film to date, is set to hit theaters tonight, one week earlier than its original premiere date on May 4. Marvel will follow the film up with Ant-Man and the Wasp on July 6, and Captain Marvel on March 8, 2019. The sequel to Avengers: Infinity War is still without a title, and it will arrive next year on May 3.