Waiting for that Black Widow spinoff to get made seems a bit pointless right now

Aug 2, 2014 13:11 GMT  ·  By
Black Widow is battling Ultron’s robots in concept art for “Avengers: Age of Ultron”
   Black Widow is battling Ultron’s robots in concept art for “Avengers: Age of Ultron”

Since Marvel kicked off its huge Avengers franchise with the first “Iron Man” movie, rumors that it would also make a female-led superhero movie, probably a spinoff, have never stopped making the rounds. Most of the time, Marvel played along with them, saying that such a development was the next logical step and leading fans into the belief that it was a priority on their slate.

That’s not really the case, Marvel President Kevin Feige tells Comic Book Resources in a new interview specifically on the topic. So, if you were waiting for a Black Widow spinoff or perhaps even a Captain Marvel film, it’s not going to happen right now – or anytime too soon.

It’s not that Marvel doesn’t want to make such a movie or that a female-led action flick isn’t as successful at the box office as a male-driven one, Feige is quick to add, naming as examples “Hunger Games,” “Divergent” and the classics “Kill Bill” and “Alien.” However, they’re just too busy for that right now.

“It can certainly be done. I hope we do it sooner rather than later,” he says. Can you feel the “but” coming? Because here it is.

“But we find ourselves in the very strange position of managing more franchises than most people have — which is a very, very good thing and we don’t take for granted, but is a challenging thing. You may notice from those release dates, we have three for 2017. And that’s because just the timing worked on what was sort of gearing up. But it does mean you have to put one franchise on hold for three or four years in order to introduce a new one? I don’t know,” Feige continues.

It seems to us like, if they really wanted to make a female-led movie, they would have included it in their release schedule a long time ago, when they first said they were thinking about it, together with the other male-centered installments.

Saying that you’re committed to making one such movie and then coming out with the statement that you’re actually too busy for it makes you sound like you’ve been lying all along.

In the end, it’s the fans who are the most disappointed because they actually took Feige on his word and believed him when he said, for example, that Black Widow was getting her own spinoff in a matter of time.

Ironically, Marvel wasn’t “too busy” to work towards launching new franchises, like “Guardians of the Galaxy” and the upcoming “Ant-Man” and “Doctor Strange.”