Mark Ruffalo Congratulates Scarlett Johansson on Black Widow Opening Weekend

Black Widow smash puny box office! Hulk actor Mark Ruffalo congratulates his Marvel co-star and "birthday twin" Scarlett Johansson on the opening weekend of Marvel Studios' Black Widow. The famously loose-lipped Avengers star says "no spoilers" for the spy-thriller topping the box office with an estimated opening weekend of $218 million globally, taking in a pandemic-best $80 million domestically. Since its July 9 release in theaters and on Disney+ Premier Access, where Black Widow is now streaming for an additional fee of $29.99, the Marvel movie scored a best-ever $60 million in Premier Access sales as the first film from Marvel Studios to release day-and-date.

Ruffalo and Johansson first appeared together in 2012's The Avengers, where Ruffalo's Bruce Banner hulks out on Johansson's S.H.I.E.L.D. super-spy Romanoff, before reuniting for a romance between their characters in 2015's Avengers: Age of Ultron. Ruffalo and Johansson wouldn't appear together again until Avengers: Infinity War in 2018, reuniting for the final time in Avengers: Endgame in 2019.

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After her character's death in Endgame, Johansson's swansong for Natasha Romanoff in the Marvel Cinematic Universe comes in the Cate Shortland-directed Black Widow. Johansson is the first Marvel star to act as an executive producer while headlining their own film from the Kevin Feige-headed studio.

Johansson "has no plans to return" as Black Widow in future Marvel movies after more than a decade in the MCU, telling Fatherly: "I feel really satisfied with this film. It feels like a great way to go out for this chapter of my Marvel identity."

After passing the torch to the black widow Yelena Belova (Marvel newcomer Florence Pugh) in the new movie set in-between the events of Captain America: Civil War and Infinity War, Johansson says her Marvel future might be behind the camera.

"I would love to be able to continue to collaborate with Marvel in other ways because I think there's just an incredible wealth of stories there," she said. "Re-imagining this genre is something that I find very interesting. I think there's a lot of opportunities to tell these stories in different ways than audiences have come to expect."

Ruffalo returns to the MCU and next reprises his role as the Hulk in the upcoming Disney+ original series She-Hulk, which also stars The Incredible Hulk's Tim Roth as the Abomination and franchise newcomer Tatiana Maslany as Banner's superhero cousin Jennifer Walters.

Marvel's Black Widow is now playing in theaters and streaming on Disney+ Premier Access.

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