The One Avengers Scene That Made Scarlett Johansson Believe in the MCU Again
With Avengers: Doomsday and Secret Wars looming, Scarlett Johansson says her MCU start was anything but assured—she even doubted The Avengers as the early production felt like a chaotic mess.
With new Avengers movies like Doomsday and Secret Wars looming, Scarlett Johansson is looking back at how shaky the whole thing felt at the start — and where she stands on ever suiting up again.
Early Avengers days: fun, chaotic, and kinda confusing
In a Vanity Fair chat, Johansson admitted the first Avengers felt risky from the jump. Iron Man had blown the doors off, Iron Man 2 did fine, but the rest of the lineup felt disconnected to her. Thor, she said, seemed like it came from a totally different corner of the universe. Captain America had its own vibe. Then you toss in Hulk and Hawkeye and, on set, it all felt a little unglued — costumes, green screens, the works.
She says the only people acting like this would definitely click were Kevin Feige and writer-director Joss Whedon. Everyone else was basically trusting the process and hoping the machine knew where it was going.
The shot that made it all make sense
Weeks into filming, the thing that finally sold Johansson was a very nerdy production detail: that 360-degree hero shot where the camera sweeps around Iron Man, Cap, Thor, Hawkeye, Hulk, and Black Widow in a circle for the first time. On the day, a lot of what they were shooting felt awkward and not particularly cool. Then they watched playback on that moment and, suddenly, it felt powerful — like, oh, right, this might actually work. That was the first time they felt like an actual team.
She also remembers the vibe as very young and very fun. They were making friends while trying to figure out what this weird crossover experiment was supposed to be — which, of course, became a mega-franchise.
Quick refresher: The Avengers (2012)
- Director: Joss Whedon
- Cast: Robert Downey Jr., Chris Evans, Mark Ruffalo, Chris Hemsworth, Scarlett Johansson, Jeremy Renner
- IMDb: 8/10
- Rotten Tomatoes: 91%
- Runtime: 2h 23m
- Box office: $1.5 billion
- Streaming (US): Disney+
So, is Black Widow coming back?
Short answer: no. In Interview Magazine, while joking around with her Black Widow co-star David Harbour, Johansson swatted down the endless rumors that Natasha might climb out of the Endgame grave.
"If I come back from the dead, then half the world's population dies. Didn't you see Endgame for Christ's sake?"
In a 2025 Vanity Fair interview, she doubled down: she misses her Marvel friends and loves the character, but she does not want to undo a meaningful ending just to pop back in.
"I miss my buddies and really would love to be with them forever, but what works about the character is that her story is complete. I don't want to mess with that. For fans too — it's important for them."
So even with two more Avengers movies on the way, Johansson sounds firm: Nat's story is closed. If the MCU wants more Romanoff, it will have to be in flashbacks or with a different Widow — because Black Widow coming back from that Endgame sacrifice would cut against the whole point of it.