Black Widow’s Small Part in Ant-Man Revealed by Director Peyton Reed

Ant-Man director Peyton Reed reveals Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson) makes an off-screen 'cameo' [...]

By Cameron Bonomolo

Ant-Man director Peyton Reed reveals Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson) makes an off-screen "cameo" in a scene pitting size-shrinking superhero Scott Lang (Paul Rudd) against Falcon (Anthony Mackie) of the Avengers. When Hank Pym (Michael Douglas) and Hope (Evangeline Lilly) send Lang on a mission to steal a device from what Pym believed to be a Stark Industries warehouse, the rookie Ant-Man realizes the "old warehouse" is the New Avengers facility revealed in Avengers: Age of Ultron. The facility's rooftop sensor is triggered by ant-sized intruder Lang, who is quickly spotted by the eagle-eyed Falcon's high-tech goggles.

"What's going on down there, Sam?" asks an unidentified male voice over radio when Falcon lands on the rooftop. Following a brief scuffle that ends only after Ant-Man shrinks down to infiltrate and sabotage Falcon's wings, grounding him, Falcon reports back to Avengers headquarters: "It's really important to me that Cap never finds out about this."

During a Q&A on Twitter, Reed revealed Falcon's request was directed at Natasha Romanoff, whose response is not heard. Before the events of Ant-Man, Falcon, Black Widow, and Captain America (Chris Evans) teamed up to take down a brainwashed Winter Soldier (Sebastian Stan) and HYDRA in Captain America: The Winter Soldier, and the three heroes would later form the "secret" Avengers when on the run from the law in-between the events of Captain America: Civil War and Avengers: Infinity War.

In a 2015 interview with Vulture, Reed revealed Falcon's extended cameo was not in the original Ant-Man script:

"When we were talking about increasing the heist movie tropes, [co-writer Adam] McKay said, 'There's always that moment where the heist is in place and the plan is ready but, oh sh-t, there's one more thing we've gotta get,'" Reed recalled. "In our movie, it's the signal decoy, and Hank has to send Scott to this old Stark warehouse to get it. Unbeknownst to Pym, that old piece of land became — at the end of Age of Ultron — the new Avengers facility."

McKay pitched Ant-Man fighting an Avenger and, after a screening of The Winter Soldier, Falcon "seemed like the right character — not a marquee character like Iron Man or Thor, but the right level of hero."

"And the kid in us was excited: This hero has these certain powers and this other hero has different powers, so if they fight, who's gonna win?" Reed added. "That's what I love about the whole Marvel thing: Mackie's in Winter Soldier, a pretty serious-minded political thriller, and then he comes into our movie and he's doing light comedy."

Ant-Man and other Marvel Studios movies are now available for streaming on Disney+.

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