What If Marvel Made Black Widow Before The MCU

Thanks to a scrapped movie script, it’s possible that a Black Widow movie could have debuted before Scarlett Johansson and the MCU popularized the character. Back in the late 1990s and early 2000s, before Iron Man launched the MCU and changed superhero movies forever, the collection of superheroes were scattered among studios. Natasha Romanoff, aka Black Widow, was owned by Lionsgate, and they came very close to making their own Black Widow film long before the MCU was even a concept.

Black Widow was released in the Marvel Cinematic Universe in 2021, around twenty years after a solo movie starring the character was first in the works. The movie’s release coming after Natasha’s death in Avengers: Endgame and over ten years after her original MCU debut led to a film that couldn’t fulfill many expectations. Add to this the fact that its release was delayed several times due to COVID-19 – and it was ultimately released to Disney+ simultaneously with its theatrical run – and it’s clear why Black Widow suffered at the box office. Had Liongates gone through with the original Black Widow in 2004, it could have changed this outcome.

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Why Black Widow’s Pre-MCU Movie Never Happened

While superhero movies were nowhere near as big as they are now, they were starting to make waves in the cinema world. The success of Fox’s X-Men influenced 2002’s Spider-Man, which was a landmark superhero movie and encouraging to the studios who held the rights to various characters. Lionsgate hired David Hayter, who penned X-Men, to work on the Black Widow movie. He worked with Kevin Feige on it, and they were both excited about the project, getting three or fourth drafts in until Lionsgate canceled the project.

Three female fronted action movies BloodRayne, Ultraviolet, and Æon Flux released in a fairly short period of time, between December 2005 and March 2006. Unfortunately, all of them were box office bombs and none of them broke 10% on Rotten Tomatoes. This was seemingly enough to steer Lionsgate away from the idea of putting out a female led superhero movie, leading to the film being canceled.

How The Success (Or Lack Of) Black Widow’s Movie Would Have Changed The Character

If Lionsgate had chosen to go ahead with the film anyway, its impacts would likely still be felt today within the MCU. The Black Widow MCU timeline would probably be different as well as her backstory, her family, and even her dynamics with other characters such as Clint Barton. While there is no accurate way to estimate how it would have performed, no matter which direction it would have swung, it would have definitely changed Natasha’s character – either establishing early a precedent for changing the character if the movie did poorly, or cementing her as more of a focal face from the offset.

When Black Widow debuted in Iron Man 2, her story was a blank slate, to an extent. The MCU didn’t have to battle with rebooting her character or changing the public’s perception of her in order to tell the story they needed or wanted to tell. She was introduced slowly and played bigger roles as Marvel began to see the public’s affinity for the character, although some feel that the MCU failed the Black Widow, even after her solo movie.

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Would Black Widow Still Have Debuted In Iron Man 2?

It is unlikely that audiences would have met the MCU Black Widow in Iron Man 2 had the original movie happened, regardless of its level of success. The MCU wasn’t the untouchable giant it is today; it was on thin ice as a franchise and needed Iron Man 2 to perform well. If the Lionsgate version of Black Widow had flopped, then Marvel would be unlikely to want to introduce Natasha to the MCU so soon after her solo movie didn’t resonate well with the public.

However, if Black Widow proved highly successful, that could have created its own set of problems. Lionsgate would have likely become protective of the character and demanded a high price for the rights to use her, similar to how Sony handled Spider-Man. Marvel most definitely would have wanted a high profile character like the Black Widow in Iron Man 2 to boost their credibility and draw audiences. But because they were just getting on their feet as a studio, they wouldn’t have been able to afford the rights to use Natasha Romanoff, so she probably wouldn’t have made her MCU debut until much later.

Would The MCU’s Black Widow Movie Still Have Happened?

If Lionsgate had released a solo Black Widow movie back in the early 2000s, the 2021 MCU Black Widow never would have happened; at least, not in the same way. Releasing a solo movie for Black Widow would’ve been more complicated due to it constituting a reboot of the Lionsgate movie, were that to have also explored her backstory. As such, the MCU could’ve either repeated what happened in reality and delayed a Black Widow movie until the character was established as being different from her first movie counterpart, or otherwise have repeated Spider-Man: Homecoming‘s trick of having a first solo movie that didn’t involve the hero’s origin story.

The MCU would have probably released a version of Black Widow at some point, but the public’s perception of the character and the fact that she likely wouldn’t have appeared in Iron Man 2 changes the MCU story as a whole, which in turn impacts her solo movie. It is unknown whether Marvel would have still tried to integrate her into the 2012 movie The Avengers, explored her past and the Red Room more, or if they would’ve still killed her off in Endgame.

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Because Lionsgate chose to scrap the original Black Widow solo movie, it is unknown what impacts it really could have had on the MCU and female centered superhero movies as a whole, possibly changing the evolution of female superheros. While the MCU probably would have integrated the character at some point, audiences could still be waiting on an MCU Black Widow if the Lionsgate version wound up being as popular as the X-Men. For fans of the assassin spy, it is probably for the best that Lionsgate didn’t introduce the character to the big screen first.

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