She may have missed out on becoming the first Marvel hero to lead her own movie, but Scarlett Johansson’s Natasha Romanoff is finally set to take centre stage in a Black Widow solo film from Marvel Studios, and THR is reporting that the actress has secured a bumper payday for her efforts.
The trade claims that Johansson is set to pocket a cool $15 million fee to reprise her role – the same amount that Chris Evans and Chris Hemsworth earned for appearing in Captain America: Civil War and Thor: Ragnarok respectively, as well as Avengers: Infinity War and next year’s Avengers 4.
Johansson’s deal is far and away the biggest that Marvel has paid out for a first solo outing, coming in at three times the $5 million salary Brie Larson is collecting for Captain Marvel. Chadwick Boseman reportedly earned $2 million for the lead in Black Panther, while Robert Downey Jr. earned just $500,000 for the first Iron Man (although his subsequent paydays have more than made up for that – including $50 million for The Avengers, $75 million for Iron Man 3 and $10 million for just three days work on Spider-Man: Homecoming).
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Black Widow has Cate Shortland (Lore) attached to direct, and will reportedly be a prequel taking place before Natasha’s first on-screen appearance in Iron Man 2. As yet, there’s no word on a potential release date but given how far along the production line it appears to be, we’ll presumably see it as one of the earlier Phase Four movies.