Marvel’s Standalone ‘Black Widow’ Film With Scarlett Johansson Moves Ahead

Marvel is pushing forward with their standalone Black Widow film, starring Scarlett Johansson.

JAC SCHAEFFER JOINS BLACK WIDOW PROJECT

The company got Jac Schaeffer to sign on as scriptwriter. Sources say the film has yet to be green-lighted, but that the film is gaining momentum at Marvel with Schaeffer on board. Marvel president Kevin Feige met with many writers before tapping Schaeffer, while other executives met with Johansson to hear her vision for the film’s future.

Schaeffer is new on the scene but broke out with her 2014 Blacklist script The Shower, a comedy about an alien invasion during a baby shower. The script caught the eye of Anne Hathaway, who quickly attached herself to the project. She was so impressed with Schaeffer that she hired her to pen Nasty Woman, a new female take on Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, also to star Hathaway.

Schaeffer made her feature screenwriting debut in 2009 at the Tribeca Film Festival with TiMER, which she also directed. Her most recent work was a short film based on Frozen called “Olaf’s Frozen Adventure,” which played before screenings of Pixar’s Coco.

Marvel has yet to officially comment on the Black Widow production. Fans of the character have been vying for a standalone film since she first appeared in in Iron Man 2 in 2010. Johansson as Black Widow has appeared in six Marvel films, including this past summer’s Avengers: Infinity War.

In 2016, Captain America: Civil War writers Stephen McFreely and Christopher Markus broke down the arc of Black Widow, saying that her “journey, over her various appearances, is one coming out of the shadows and into the light.”