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Black Widow Will 'Hand the Baton' to Florence Pugh's Yelena Belova


Credit: Marvel Entertainment


Black Widow is still months away from its debut, with fans left to speculate what's to come in the MCU film. It's been a long-standing rumor that Florence Pugh's Yelena Belova will take on the Black Widow mantle, as the hero sacrificed her life Avengers: Endgame. It looks like that'll be the case, with Black Widow director Cate Shortland basically confirming the theory.

In a recent interview with Empire, Shortland teases what to expect in the Scarlett Johansson feature. "[Kevin Feige] realized that the audience would expect an origin story so, of course, we went in the opposite direction," she said. "And we didn't know how great Florence Pugh would be. We knew she would be great, but we didn't know how great."

"Scarlett is so gracious, like, ‘Oh, I'm handing her the baton,'" the director continued, adding that the film will "propel another female storyline." Shortland also revealed that there will be a proper send-off for Natasha Romanoff since the fans were upset that there wasn't a funeral for the beloved hero.

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Credit: Marvel

However, Johansson thinks Natasha "wouldn't have wanted" a funeral. Shortland says the character is "too private" and people don't really know much about her. "So what we did in this film was allow the ending to be the grief the individuals felt, rather than a big public outpouring," the director said. "I think that's a fitting ending for her."

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While some fans speculate that Yelena will meet an unfortunate fate in the upcoming movie given that Black Widow wore her vest in Infinity War, Shortland's comments suggest the opposite, that we'll see more of Pugh's character in the future.

Initially set to arrive in May 2020, Black Widow is currently set for release on November 6, 2020.

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