How Scarlett Johansson went from second choice to making history: “A terrible deal”
Some actors are so intrinsically tied to a character that it’s nigh-on impossible to imagine anyone else playing them. Take Scarlett Johansson, for example. She became so synonymous with a character she played for a decade that it would boggle most fans’ minds to find out she wasn’t the first choice for the role. In fact, when she signed on the dotted line to play the character for the first time, her deal was reported in the Hollywood trades as a terrible choice for her career. In the end, though, it wasn’t just a good call – it was a history-making one.
To begin this story, everyone must cast their mind back to March 2009, a time when the Marvel Cinematic Universe was a very new idea in the Hollywood landscape. Iron Man and The Incredible Hulk were released in 2008, and both movies ended with a tease that told movie fans what comic book nerds had known for years: these characters exist in the same universe. Given how ubiquitous and damaging to the movie landscape the MCU proved to be, it’s perhaps hard to remember just how novel and exciting it was for Samuel L Jackson to turn up at the end of Iron Man talking about the Avengers or Robert Downey Jr’s Tony Stark doing the same in The Incredible Hulk.
In 2009, Marvel began putting together Iron Man 2, the third film in its nascent universe. It wanted to introduce the iconic Russian spy Natasha Romanoff in the movie – a badass character better known to fans as Black Widow. So, the studio set about recruiting the actor Emily Blunt, who felt perfect for the role.
Unfortunately, though, Blunt was contractually obligated to make a Jack Black comedy at the time, something she wasn’t very happy about. “I didn’t want to do Gulliver’s Travels,” she told Howard Stern in 2021. “It was a bit of a heartbreaker for me.” She revealed that she loves Downey Jr and was a fan of Iron Man, so playing Romanoff “would have been amazing”. However, she did admit that, in the years since, she realised, “I don’t know if superheroes are for me. They’re not up my alley”.
So, unable to sign up Blunt, Marvel cast their eye toward its second choice. At that time, Johansson was coming off The Other Boleyn Girl and Vicky Christina Barcelona, both critical and commercial hits, but had faltered with The Spirit, her first attempt at a comic book movie. Her previous go-around with an action blockbuster – Michael Bay’s The Island in 2005 – had also been dubbed a flop.
Perhaps this is why Marvel was able to get Johansson to sign a contract that an insider described to Deadline’s Nikki Finke as “a terrible deal made by CAA”. The insider lambasted Marvel’s offer, saying, “It’s as bad as any deal that I’ve heard. It’s lowball money. And it ties her to countless movies, including that ensemble The Avengers, which is what makes this brutal for a lot of actors.”
Amazingly, though, this “terrible deal” wound up proving incredibly lucrative over the next decade for Johansson. So much so, in fact, that she became the highest-paid female actor in Hollywood in 2018 and 2019, making $40million and $56m in those years respectively. Playing Romanoff in eight MCU movies in that period, including all four Avengers films, two Captain America pictures, and her own solo Black Widow movie, also helped cement her status as the highest-grossing female box office star of all time.
Ultimately, Johansson bowed out of playing Romanoff in 2021, having made history several times over with the character. The gamble she took on that lowball Marvel contract in 2009 was a very shrewd move, and not just for financial reasons. You see, Johansson has always spoken extremely fondly about playing Romanoff, an important female hero for an entire generation of fans.
“I absolutely loved every filming experience I had, working 10 years with Marvel and with that amazing cast, and I love the character Natasha,” Johansson told Variety in 2023. “I have a lot of empathy for her, and it was amazing to build that character over such a long period of time.”
