SDCC 2016: Joss Whedon Would Like To Direct A Black Widow Film

It almost plays out like a movie itself. “She’s a badass character practically begging to be made into a movie. He’s a writer/director who’s helped make her badass but who had lost his will to go on. If they can just get back together, they can create something magic: a Black Widow film.” And the only thing standing in the way of this happy ending is Marvel’s okay.

The director, of course, is Joss Whedon, the man who helped shaped the Marvel Cinematic Universe into the juggernaut it is today. In talking with IGN.com at San Diego Comic Con, the director revealed that he would come back to the fold to direct a Black Widow film:

Well if somebody pointed to me and said, ‘You want to make a Black Widow movie?’ the answer would be ‘Duh!’ For two reasons: I think that character really is very interesting and very earthbound and so it’s the kind of action that I got to do less of with somebody like Thor or The Vision. When you get into your Superman territory it’s harder to maintain that sort of, the gritty action that the Russo brothers do so beautifully. And she’s got that kind of thing…and really do a spy thriller, like really do a good, paranoid sort of ‘John LeCarré kind of on crack’ sort of thing. That would be really fun. Also, Scarlett Johansson is just delightful. She works really hard, but she just spends most of her time cracking me up, so it would be a fun shoot.

Whedon cited burnout after directing Avengers: Age of Ultron for walking away not only from directing the sequel, but also from his role as the big Mr. Fix-it for all thing MCU. It’s easy to see from the above that Whedon thinks that a low-key, more grounded Black Widow film would be easier to manage than the big blockbusters The Avengers have become.

Marvel has already said it is committed to giving the character its own stand alone franchise, so hiring Whedon seems like a no brainer. Let’s make this happen, Marvel.

Here is the interview in its entirety.