How Kevin Feige Helped Save One of the Best Scenes in Black Widow

Marvel Studios head Kevin Feige has overseen a franchise grow from a single movie in 2008’s Iron Man to a property spanning two dozen movies and half a dozen shows over film and television. Filmmakers have routinely said the executive largely lets them do what they want with their respective projects, and Black Widow helmer Cate Shortland has said the same.

In the latest issue of Empire, however, Shortland adds the executive wanted to make sure at least one scene was kept in the film, despite the director and Scarlett Johansson herself showing some resistance.

“He doesn’t give you many directives, he’s very free,” Shortland told the magazine.

That’s when she revealed the dinner scene was largely kept in the flick by Feige’s suggestion.

“But that was a scene he really felt needed to be in the film, and Scarlett and I kept fighting him on it, saying, ‘How will this ever work?’ But it became a very alive thing. You’ve got this bunch of people shipwrecked together, who are still desperately trying to cling onto the roles that they had in Ohio, because that’s all they know. That’s all they have. And it’s beautiful for me.”

Just like Feige helped ensure that character-developing scene was kept in the movie, Black Widow star David Harbour helped to inspire another similar moment.

“My character is fumbling trying to be a father and in the end he fails. She tells him to get out. In the script, he says something and leaves,” Harbour said. “I felt, there’s gotta be something a little more profound,” Harbour told Insider this summer.

“I said, ‘Wouldn’t it be interesting if back in America when [Belova] was little and was terrified having been taken from her family the Red Guardian would put her in the car and drive around and play ‘American Pie’?” he added. “So from then on she tells daddy to put in the tape.”

Black Widow is now available wherever movies are sold and will be added to Disney+ on October 6th. If you haven’t signed up for Disney+ yet, you can try it out here.

Which characters would you like to see makeup the MCU’s Dark Avengers? Let us know your thoughts either in the comments section or by hitting our writer @AdamBarnhardt up on Twitter to chat all things MCU!

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