Character breakdowns reported to be from Marvel Studios’ Black Widow solo movie reveal hints about the threat the super spy (Scarlett Johansson) will face before her time with the Avengers.
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According to That Hashtag Show, Marvel is seeking a male with open ethnicity in his 40s to portray the film’s villain, who is described only as “exciting.”
Marvel is also looking to cast “contemporaries” for Widow, with an eye towards actors aged late-20s to early 30s. The first role seeks out a male of African, Middle Eastern, or East Indian ethnicity, while the female role is described as “kick ass” and a “female [James] Bond.”
Also set to be cast are a European Caucasian female and a European Caucasian male, both aged between 50 to 60-years-old. The studio is said to be favoring actors and actresses capable of speaking multiple languages for the above four roles.
An actress in her 50s is being sought to play a “conniving female villain” in a “smaller” villainous role, while a male actor in his late-20s is being sought to play a “bookish American.”
Hashtag suggests the villain could be Red Guardian, a.k.a. KGB agent Alexi Shostakov, who in the Marvel comics was a Russian fighter pilot-turned-super soldier and the one-time husband of Black Widow. Also named as a possibility is Taskmaster, an expert assassin capable of mimicking an opponent’s abilities hit-for-hit.
In September, a synopsis released through subscription-based film production tracking site Production Weekly reported the film would center around a 22-year-old Natasha Romanoff, with most of the action revolving around New York City:
At birth the Black Widow (aka Natasha Romanova) is given to the KGB, which grooms her to become its ultimate operative. When the U.S.S.R. breaks up, the government tries to kill her as the action movies to present-day New York, where she is a freelance operative. The standalone film will find Romanoff living in the United States 15 years after the fall of the Soviet Union.
The rumored plot synopsis would place Black Widow in 2006, two years after the Marvel Cinematic Universe-launching Iron Man and six years before Widow becomes a member of Earth’s mightiest heroes in The Avengers.
Cate Shortland (Lore, Berlin Syndrome) directs from a script by Jac Schaeffer (Olaf’s Frozen Adventure, The Hustle). Black Widow is expected to arrive in 2020.
