With Thor: Ragnarok, director Taika Waititi brought his brand of humor to the Marvel Cinematic Universe with great success. And if given the chance, it seems like he’d do the same with an unlikely Marvel character.
In an interview excerpt posted by io9 on Thursday, Waititi said that he’s interested in tackling Scarlett Johansson’s character Black Widow and applying his trademark comedy. “In all honesty, I reckon I could probably bring something pretty unique to any of the franchises,” Waititi said. “So I’d love to see Black Widow.”
Black Widow last appeared in 2016’s Captain America: Civil War, where she sided with Iron Man against Captain America and his allies in the fallout of Avengers: Age of Ultron, only to turn sides and let Captain America and Bucky escape to go underground. As a former Russian spy who was trained by the KGB, Black Widow is a pretty surprising choice for a comedy lead, even if she got a couple good zingers in during the Avengers films. But for Waititi, that’s part of the appeal.
“[I’d like to see] Black Widow as something crazy and a bit funnier than we expect it to be,” he adds. “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?”
Scarlett Johansson behind the scenes of 'Captain America: The Winter Soldier'.
Waititi also gave some indication as to how he’d approach it without it feeling completely inconsistent with the character: “I really go for the underdog,” he said. “[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.”
While it doesn’t seem like something along these lines will be green-lit for the character anytime soon — many would probably settle for a solo film, period — it would definitely be cool to see what Waititi’s vision for the movie would be after what he did for Thor with Ragnarok.
Thor: Ragnarok will be in US theaters on November 3.
