Kevin Feige Downplays BLACK WIDOW Movie, Teases CAPTAIN MARVEL

Still waiting for Black Widow to get a solo movie?  Keep waiting.

For those of you keeping track, it's been four years since Scarlett Johansson debuted as Marvel Comics' Black Widow in Iron Man 2 and we're apparently no closer to getting a Black Widow movie than we were in September 2010.  The character was important enough to be included in the first Avengers film in 2012 and this year's Captain America: The Winter Soldier, not to mention the Avengers sequel The Avengers: Age of Ultron in 2015, but it seems even four high-profile movies can't get a spy film made these days.

Ahem.

At the end of last week, Devin Faraci's Badass Digest spoke with Kevin Feige, President of Production at Marvel Studios, during a press junket for Captain America: The Winter Soldier and asked him when other Marvel heroes besides white males would become leads themselves.  "I think [Black Widow] has a central leading role in this movie," replied Feige.  "What people are really saying is 'When are you doing a standalone female superhero movie?'  The answer is, I don’t know.  We only do two a year, we know more or less what’s coming up through ‘16/’17.  With Widow, what’s great is the interaction with all the team members, and the question is whether we want to pluck her out of that.  I’m very proud of the way the Marvel movies handle the female characters who are in all the movies we are making, as opposed to feeling the pressure of 'When are you doing a female movie?'  We’re exploring a lot of Widow, and that’s going to continue with Age of Ultron in a big way."

And let's remember that Guardians of the Galaxy, which includes a sentient tree creature and a talking raccoon, is coming to theaters later this year and that household name Ant-Man arrives after Age of Ultron in 2015.  You know, instead of a Black Widow movie.

But hey, according to Feige, there's already plenty of Black Widow as it is.  "Frankly if we do a Black Widow movie after Age of Ultron, when she’s been central in three or four movies I don’t think we’d get the quote unquote credit for it.  People would say 'She’s already a big giant superhero!'  But if we had a great idea, we’d do it."

The 24th official James Bond movie is currently in pre-production.  The 1st Natasha Romanova movie?  Not so much.

So, if there was going to be a female Marvel superhero movie, what would Feige like to see?  "I like the idea if we’re going to do a [female lead] do a new one," said Feige.  "Do a wholly new character, do an origin story."

Badass Digest suggested the current Captain Marvel, Carol Danvers, and Feige replied, "We’ve talked a lot about [Captain Marvel].  I think that would be very cool."  Unfortunately, Black Widow has received those very same kind of noncommittal, "we've talked about it" remarks since 2010, so take that for what you will.

However, Faraci offers up a nugget of hope by stating that "my sources tell me that we will see an iteration of Captain Marvel onscreen by 2016 - either at the end of Phase Two or the beginning of Phase Three - in another Marvel movie."  Faraci suggests there could be a Captain Marvel solo movie sometime around 2017 or 2018.

Until then, all we can do is just wait and see what happens.  Maybe Black Widow can put in an Ant-Man appearance?