They really don’t tell Scarlett Johansson anything. She may be the star of “Black Widow,” but that doesn’t mean she has any idea when the trailer for the movie would come out.
You may recall we got a surprise first look at “Black Widow” early this week. And when we say early, we mean early. Our story posted at just before 2 a.m. PT on Tuesday. The trailer dropped late Monday without any fanfare or prior warning, and Johansson told Stephen Colbert Thursday night that even she had no idea it was coming.
“I woke up and I got a text from Chris Evans saying, ‘the trailer looks great.’ I don’t know what he was doing up at 5 a.m. That’s another story. Yeah, lifting, sure,” she said replying to Colbert’s joke. “They didn’t tell me! They keep everything from me.”
Johansson was on “The Late Show” to promote “Marriage Story,” which she stars in with Adam Driver, a.k.a. Kylo Ren from the “Star Wars” trilogy. So Colbert asked if she had an idea who would win a fight between Kylo and Natasha. She didn’t have much of an answer, or about any specifics she was allowed to say about “Black Widow,” other than that it takes place between “Captain America: Civil War” and “Avengers: Infinity War.”
Johansson says the film is a “homecoming” in which Natasha now has to grapple with some of her guilt over the things she’s done before she became an Avenger. Fans however have been wondering why a solo, Black Widow movie isn’t a proper origin story that goes all the way back to her early days of training in Russia, and she gave a good explanation as to why this story was preferable.
“I really could never have made this film 10 years ago when we just started our journey with Marvel. It’s a film that is so much about … the character has informed this film. My journey with Natasha has informed this film. It’s a character who is a fully recognized woman. It has a complexity to it that it is delicious,” Johansson said. “Not to say that it would’ve been something else or totally entertaining 10 years from now, but we get to do stuff that is good.”
Colbert also had one more theory to run by her: that this is Johansson’s last go-around as “Black Widow.” Here’s why: this is her eighth appearance as the character and spiders have eight legs. It can’t possibly be a coincidence?
Sure, Stephen. Check out Johansson’s appearance on CBS’ “The Late Show” above.