Black Widow Fight Scenes Focus on Close Contact Combat Over Super Power Action

The upcoming Black Widow movie is going to bring a gritty, raw attitude to its fight sequences as close combat will take center stage in a cinematic universe often crowded with super powered action beats. Natasha Romanoff is a hero in her own right but via training and skills which she has honed in on over years. She doesn’t wear a high-tech iron suit, she hasn’t been injected with a super soldier serum, and she doesn’t possess the power of Thor. She’s a highly trained super-assassin and the Black Widow movie will feature that at its forefront.

Black Widow screened its first footage at San Diego Comic-Con back in July, showing off an intense action sequence between Scarlett Johansson’s Natasha Romanoff and Florence Pugh’s Yelena. The sequence was a gritty, intimate, and intense scenario as the two assassins bounced each other around a kitchen and living room through a hand to hand bout. Now, screenwriter Jac Schaefferis promising that to be just the tip of the iceberg.

“It’s very rare to see something on screen how you pictured it in your head,” Schaeffer told Inverse. “To see that in motion with the actors was thrilling.” The footage not only featured Black Widow fighting in an apartment (a full description is available here) but also saw her coming face to face with the villain of Taskmaster in a sequence which showcased the foe’s ability to mirror abilities in real time.

Schaeffer is also showrunning for the upcoming WandaVision series, which was tremendously different, as should be expected. “The fighting [in Black Widow] is a lot of close contact, hand-to-hand combat,” Schaeffer said. “It’s very visceral. There’s a lot of aggression and power in a very human way that I find really satisfying and really exciting to watch, but it’s the polar opposite to writing for super-powered characters.”

The film will also star Rachel Weisz as Melina (who might just be Taskmaster) and the actress shared a similar sentiment when describing director Cate Shortland’s approach. “That’s Cate’s signature style of direction,” Weisz told ComicBook.com. “She’s an author, director, she always directs females. The percentage of films always were men. There always kinda quite gritty, quite edgy, quite hardcore, quite tough, quite vulnerable, quite sexy.”

Black Widow is set for release on May 1, 2020.