The final minutes of Avengers: Endgame feature the most expensive shot ever assembled in movie history, as the star-studded cast of the Marvel Cinematic Universe turn out in numbers for the funeral of Tony Stark in a scene that left audiences across the world bawling their eyes out as they bid farewell to one of the founders of the Avengers, as well as one of the most popular characters in all of cinema.
However, some fans were a little annoyed that the other original member of Earth’s Mightiest Heroes who didn’t make it out of Endgame alive wasn’t afforded the same treatment. In a recent interview, co-director Joe Russo explained in a pretty succinct manner why Natasha Romanoff wasn’t afforded the luxury of a funeral scene, saying:
“Well, Natasha has another movie coming out. Tony does not have another movie coming out.”
If that sounds a little harsh, Russo went into more detail about the decision not to give Black Widow a proper send-off, and unsurprisingly, it has to do with the character’s currently-shooting solo movie that’s set to kick off Phase Four of the MCU.
“When you’re dealing with storytelling real estate in a three-hour movie, there’s only so much of it, and if someone else has another film coming, there’s always the opportunity to bring closure in that other movie. In this movie, we had to bring closure to Tony Stark.”
Endgame co-writer Christopher Markus echoed these sentiments, arguing that it doesn’t fit the character of somebody that’s been a top-secret espionage agent for most of their life to have such a public goodbye.
“Tony gets a funeral. Natasha doesn’t. That’s partly because Tony’s this massive public figure and she’s been a cipher the whole time. It wasn’t necessarily honest to the character to give her a funeral.”
It remains to be seen just how Black Widow will manage to bring a proper sense of closure to Agent Romanoff’s arc, especially when everybody is already aware of the ultimate sacrifice she makes during Avengers: Endgame. With the movie set to be a prequel taking place between the events of Captain America: Civil War and Avengers: Infinity War though, the narrative will hopefully fill in some gaps to a character that even the writers of the biggest movie in history have described as a cipher.