Taika Waititi is on the verge of becoming one of Hollywood’s most sought-after directors.
With Thor: Ragnarok primed to whip up a storm at the international box office, the New Zealand filmmaker is currently in the midst of press for his spacefaring romp, which has already cemented its status as one of the best-reviewed movies of 2017. And the good news just keeps coming.
Chatting to io9 about all things Ragnarok, Waititi revealed his pitch for the long-rumored Black Widow solo movie and, well, it’s a little unusual. Ask any Marvel fan to conjure up a mental image of Natasha Romanoff’s standalone adventure, and they’ll likely come to the conclusion that Marvel’s female-led spinoff should take the form of a dark, po-faced prequel, one designed to explore Natasha’s early career in the KGB before being recruited as one of S.H.I.E.L.D.’s top agents. But Waititi has something different in mind.
After injecting a healthy (and much-needed!) dose of fun into Asgard, Taika Waititi wants to subvert expectations again to deliver…a Black Widow comedy movie. Wait, what?
The director has already expressed an interest in collaborating with Marvel again in the not-so-distant future, but if the stars aligned and Waititi was placed in control of a Black Widow spinoff, he’d seemingly uncover the “funny version” of Miss. Romanoff’s harrowing backstory.
In all honesty, I reckon I could probably bring something pretty unique to any of the franchises. So, I’d love to see Black Widow. [I’d like to see] Black Widow as something crazy and a bit funnier than we expect it to be. Because we know her story and it’s very sullen and very dark and her history is very dark. But! What’s the funny version of that? What’s the more entertaining version of that?
It’s a little out there, to put it mildly, and though Marvel’s roster of directors seemingly enjoy a great amount of creative agency on set, we imagine this wacky pitch is just too much for the MCU. But you can’t fault Waititi for thinking outside the box. In closing, here’s what the director shared about rooting for the underdog:
I really go for the underdog. [And] I think there’s a way in with any of the characters. You just have to find it and find what honors what’s already there with the source material but also brings it into a more entertaining form for the audience.
Tell us, what do you make of this proposed Black Widow spinoff? You can, as always, share your thoughts in the usual spot.