April 2010

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April 2010 

Return to Table of Contents April 2010

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Editor’s Note

Iron Man’s Widow




Did you know there was a Black Widow movie in the works about six years ago? In March 2004 Lionsgate announced it was making a movie based on Marvel’s complicated Russian spy (sometimes she’s a hero, sometimes she’s a villain). Two years later the studio dumped the project, citing the failure of recent female-based action movies. Catwoman, Ultraviolet, Aeon Flux, Elektra and BloodRayne had all tanked in the intervening years. The project’s writer-director, David Hayter, shopped it around to other studios, but eventually said, “I never felt comfortable that we had found a place that was willing to take the movie, and the character, seriously.”

Now, as Black Widow — played by Scarlett Johansson — pops up as a supporting character in Iron Man 2, the debate about whether female superheroes can carry films rages on. Movie websites Rope of Silicon and Cinemablend recently posted opposing columns by writers Thera Pitts and Josh Tyler as to the need for, and viability of, movies that revolve around female superheroes.

She said, “In a time when comic book geeks are actually getting laid and cute girls are parading around the convention halls in next to nothing to emulate their favourite superheroines, isn’t it a little sad that us girls have yet to have a quality superhero moment on celluloid?”

While he said, “Men and women simply have different interests…. Nobody is out there trying to force men to get interested in movies about romantic weekends in Paris, so why are we so dead set on forcing women to get interested in movies about beating people up?”

I have to say, I agree with him. Like most things on this planet, Hollywood follows a survival-of-the-fittest model. It’s not to say there is no audience — male or female — for a movie about a female superhero, just that if there were a big enough audience, that movie would get made…and do well. Case in point: Ten years ago the big question around Hollywood was, “Who will play Wonder Woman in the movie?” Sandra Bullock claimed she’d been approached. The wrestler Chyna openly expressed interest. Joss Whedon even wrote a script. And where’s that movie now?

The prospect of a Black Widow spinoff comes up in our interview with Scarlett Johansson. Check out “If the Suit Fits,” to find out what she thinks.

Three weeks before Iron Man 2 storms screens, Kick-Ass, an indie about homemade superheroes, is released. In “Revenge of the Nerd” Christopher Mintz-Plasse talks about playing the villain.

Jennifer Lopez finally returns to the big screen after having twins. In “Pregnant With Possibilities” she discusses The Back-up Plan, in which she plays…a woman about to have a baby.

In “Hot Commodity” Carey Mulligan talks about sudden fame, the paparazzi and snagging a crucial role in the Wall Street sequel, Money Never Sleeps, due out next fall.

Read “Prisoners of Love” to find out why, for Ewan McGregor, the challenges of making I Love You Phillip Morris had little to do with kissing co-star Jim Carrey.

“What Does Miley See in Him” is our interview with The Last Song’s Liam Hemsworth.

And we have “Gun For Hire,” in which Paul Gross discusses playing an American gunslinger in the Canadian Western Gunless.

—Marni Weisz, editor


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