Kevin Feige Confirms Black Widow Timeline

The Black Widow trailer did little to solidify the time in the Marvel Cinematic Universe during which the movie takes place. It was obviously before Avengers: Endgame seeing as the titular character to one last jump in that movie but a de-aged William Hurt as Thaddeus Ross left some fans a bit confused. In the footage shown at San Diego Comic-Con and Disney's D23 Expo, it looked more like the film would be set after the events of Captain America: Civil War, during a period where Natasha has few allies and being a super hero is illegal. Now, Marvel's chief creative officer Kevin Feige has confirmed this to be the case.

"It was about four years ago as we were working on Infinity War and Endgame at the same time, we knew that we wanted to bring her story to a conclusion in the most heroic way possible in Endgame, but also that we wanted to explore a part of her life that we hadn't seen before," Feige told IGN during the CCXP Expo. "It occurred to us that we had seen her adventures in the Avengers movies, but a lot of stuff happened in between those movies that we never saw, we didn't hear about, we didn't learn about. And [with] that, we wanted to do a movie with Scarlett Johansson because she is Natasha Romanoff and not do a story with a younger Black Widow for the whole film."

Of course, the Black Widow movie will introduce other Black Widow characters, such as Florence Pugh's Yelena and Rachel Weisz's Melina. Though the trailer frames them all as a big, unlikely family reuniting, there might be some drama to that spawning some of the film's antagonists.

As for Johansson, the Black Widow movie might not actually be the end of the road for her as the character which she has embodied since 2010. "If I survive the shooting of this film, maybe," Johansson told ComicBook.com at San Diego Comic-Con about a possible return after Black Widow. "That's the most vague answer I could possibly give."

During the Marvel Studios panel at CCXP, Feige teased the Black Widow movie looking into the past of the MCU while also setting up its future. Black Widow won't be alive post-Endgame but its future titles could call for the return of Johansson should they also be set in the past. Watch the video above for a full breakdown of the Black Widow trailer.

Are you ready to see Black Widow? Do you like exploring the time after Captain America: Civil War? Share your thoughts in the comment section or send them my way on Instagram and Twitter.

Black Widow hits theaters on May 1, 2020.