Scarlett and her co-stars from the upcoming Black Widow were at San Diego Comic-Con yesterday to debut footage from the film and take part in the Marvel Studios panel – in which the Phase 4 slate of movies were also announced. With a cast that includes Rachel Weisz, David Harbour, Florence Pugh and O-T Fagbenle, it’s exciting to see what will become of the long awaited standalone film for Natasha/Black Widow. Black Widow will release on May 20, 2020.

USA TODAY – As “Avengers: Endgame” closes in on its finale (in theaters Friday), Black Widow is just getting started.

Scarlett Johansson, who has played the Russian spy since launching the character in “Iron Man 2” in 2010, laughs whenever a question is posed on the long-awaited “Black Widow” spinoff, which many have speculated will go into production this year.

The 34-year-old actress starts and stops a couple of times before finally blurting out, “I don’t even think I can say a single thing! And that makes my job easier and harder at the same time.”

Wait, Johansson can’t even say how she feels about the idea of Black Widow finally getting her own film? Or if she’s ramping up workouts to prepare? “No, I can’t!” she says, fully under the scrutiny of a Disney representative sitting on the floor behind her. “Really.”

Johansson, along with Robert Downey Jr. (Iron Man), Chris Evans (Captain America), Mark Ruffalo (Hulk), Jeremy Renner (Hawkeye) and Chris Hemsworth (Thor), is one of the O.G. Avengers, having arrived in the Marvel Cinematic Universe way before the new kids like Black Panther (Chadwick Boseman) and Captain Marvel (Brie Larson) came around.

“It’s been a very transformative decade,” says Johansson. “When my character started in ‘Iron Man 2,’ she was like a souped-up secretary with a skill set on the side.”

Indeed, her character has weathered the best and worst of Marvel, including blatant sexism: “Avengers: Endgame” co-director Joe Russo found a “disturbing” lack of Black Widow toys available for kids around 2015’s “Avengers: Age of Ultron,” and consequently she was included in the first action-figure wave for 2016’s “Captain America: Civil War.”

Experts are surprised it’s taken so long for Johansson, who drove the 2014 action film “Lucy” to $463.4 million worldwide at the box office, to be granted a Marvel spinoff. But while her Widow waited, “female superheroes have evolved into being far more than just a pretty face or a hypersexualized presence,” says Karie Bible, box office analyst for Exhibitor Relations. “They have ample power and agency of their own and don’t require a romantic interest. Times have changed and these movies are changing with them.”

Johansson agrees that the MCU has evolved.

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