Black Widow Star Reveals New Details About Red Guardian's Connection to Natasha

At long last, Scarlett Johansson's Natasha Romanoff will finally get her own solo film in the form of Black Widow. Though it was originally supposed to hit theaters nearly seven months ago, it's since been delayed to next May. As such, some of the surrounding marketing as already surfaced for the movie, due to publishers and toy manufacturers being on a timeline much less flexible of that than a movie studio.

That has lead to the early release of Marvel's Black Widow: The Official Movie Special Book, a special publication from Titan Books giving fans a deep dive into the Cate Shortland feature. In it, David Harbour also reveals how his character — Alexei, the Red Guardian — came to know Romanoff and some of the other characters involved in the movie.

"Now, the connection to him and Black Widow is that they were set up as a spy family in America in the '90s," Harbour says of his character. "So, Rachel Weisz's character, Melina, was sort of the mom, Alexei was the dad, and Natasha and Yelena were their little kids. We see that in the beginning of the movie, and they sort of function as a family..

The Stranger Things super star adds, "They knew each other from long ago and then they lost touch for almost twenty years. And when we pick up, Alexei's had this deep knowledge of Natasha in a certain way that no one else had when she was a kid. He took her from the Red Room and also put her back into the Red Room because he believed in this cause."

When we spoke with the actor last year, he compared the set of Black Widow to that of an indie movie in the sense everyone involved in the production — both in front of and behind the camera — were thrilled to be involved with the production.

"The great thing about them and about all the people that work on these movies is that it really feels like an amateur movie, and I don't mean this in terms of a negative thing," he continues. "Amateur stems from the word 'amo,' to love. People just doing it for the love of it as opposed to just doing it for a paycheck and that's really what it feels like. It feels like these guys just love, love, love movies, and they want to make fun, exciting movies."

Black Widow is now scheduled for release on May 7, 2021.

What other surprises do you think are in store for the upcoming Marvel Studios flick? Let us know your thoughts either in the comments section or by hitting our writer @AdamBarnhardt up on Twitter to chat all things MCU!