First off is the Avengers. I know I've talked about it a lot recently, but it kicks off Summer Movie Season and I plan on discussing movies (both comic-related and just plain cool) for the rest of my life. Plus, I've been waiting for this film for over twenty goddamn years. So deal.
I'll be seeing it at 12:01 am next Friday morning, and had enough time last night to check online for local theatres to see who's having a midnight showing and found three possibilities.
That's right. Three...out of the five, maybe six cinemas within a 45 minute drive of my house...are offering midnight showings. One in IMAX 3D.
HOLY F**KING S#!T!!!
Still haven't made up my mind yet, but...wow.
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Second is Black Widow. Apparently, she isn't going to be in Iron Man 3.
I'm okay with this, for two reasons:
1) While the film character has had supporting roles up to this point, they've been significant supporting roles. Her presence had purpose. Putting her into IM3 "just because" would be stupid.
2) She needs her own goddamn film. Scarlett Johansson is a fantastic actress for this genre. She gets it. I never would have thought of her for either this genre or this role, but she's brought her A-game and owns it.
The tragedy is that it will never happen.
Marvel Studios is too young in the business to say "screw it" and make a movie with a strong female lead, and this genre of movies is way too fickle to know for sure it would work. If you don't believe me, watch Elektra which starred Jennifer Garner - Johansson's predecessor in the realm of comic-book films that also "got it" and owned her respective character.
But comic-book movies aren't the only genre with this problem. Westerns' biggest box-office films with female leads - to my knowledge, and please correct me if I'm wrong - are The Quick and the Dead (which also starred Leo DiCaprio, Russell Crowe, Gene Hackman and Lance Henrickson) and Bad Girls (which had not one but four female leads).
As for sci-fi, let's talk about Alien for a minute. Yes - Sigourney Weaver did a fantastic job and became a star because of it and rightly so. Yes - Ripley was a fantastic character that brought women a few steps closer to equality in terms of strong female roles to portray. Yes - the argument can be made that Weaver carried the movie, and that Alien became the huge hit it was because of her...
...but she was part of an ensemble cast for over half of the film. Plus, the alien itself was a big part of the audience draw. And every sequel since has had her as part of yet another group of humans tracking down/surviving against alien(s).
Can anyone think of a successful sci-fi film with a single female lead? Because I can't.
And for the record - this sucks.
So back to Johansson's Black Widow...
Should she have a solo Black Widow film? Absolutely.
Will it happen? Not in a million years.
However, I see no reason why she can't be in a film where...
1) she teams up with another character like Hawkeye or Cap.
2) she teams up with a new character like Carol Danvers or Jessica Drew.
3) she gets her own movie with a plot similar to La Femme Nikita, where she's taken from her home and trained by someone as part of a team and then captured and re-trained by S.H.I.E.L.D..
4) she teams up with Coulson - 'cause that would be awesome.
So the bottom line here is that with such a great actress in such a great role in their possession, Marvel Studios would be stupid not to do something more with Black Widow. I'm sure they know it and will come up with a solution because...
In Marvel Studios I Trust
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