Black Widow Has Been Fully Finished & Untouched By Marvel For A Year

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Black Widow director, Cate Shortland, confirms the Marvel Cinematic Universe has been fully finished and untouched by Marvel for a year. Scarlett Johansson's solo MCU movie is finally nearing its release once again. Black Widow was originally set to release in theaters in May 2020, but Disney delayed the film multiple times due to the coronavirus pandemic. Instead of kicking off Phase 4, the movie now will arrive after three Disney+ shows have started airing. Black Widow will be available to watch in July in theaters and on Disney+ through Premier Access.

The extended wait for Black Widow theoretically gave Marvel Studios even more time to work on the movie and perfect it. Fans regularly wondered if Marvel would make changes to the movie due to the new Phase 4 release order, even though it is set in the MCU's past: between Captain America: Civil War and Avengers: Infinity War. Marvel Studios has spent the last year finishing several of its upcoming blockbuster movies and multiple Disney+ shows, but it turns out that they've left Black Widow alone the whole time.

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As part of Empire's summer preview issue, Shortland briefly spoke to the magazine, which also debuted another new image from Black Widow featuring Johansson's Natasha Romanoff and Florence Pugh as Yelena Belova. There is no direct quote from Shortland in the article, but the outlet states Black Widow's director revealed "the film has been fully finished – and untouched – for a year now, just waiting to be unleashed on audiences."

This confirms that Marvel Studios hasn't made any changes to Black Widow, even though it is now coming out later in the MCU Phase 4 slate. The movie has long been rumored to connect to The Falcon and The Winter Soldier, with Julia Louis-Dreyfus' Valentina rumored to appear in Black Widow now. If the movie was meant to lead into the Disney+ show, it would seem that any changes were made to The Falcon and The Winter Soldier instead. This also confirms that Marvel hasn't secretly done any reshoots on the movie or even changed the edit.

Although the delays to Black Widow gave Marvel Studios time to work on the movie more if desired, the reality of the situation is that they had to shift time, energy, and money to other projects. The movie already has an estimated budget north of $200 million, so pumping more time into it would've only inflated the cost. Johansson might not return to lead future Black Widow movies, but there is still a chance Marvel Studios has hopes for this to launch a franchise with Florence Pugh. Since Marvel hasn't made any changes to Black Widow in the last year, hopefully that is a sign of their confidence in how it turned out.