Director Cate Shortland made one hell of a great Marvel movie with Black Widow. She getting a lot of praise for the film and it’s deserved. What’s crazy is that she initially turned Marvel Studios down when she was approached about directing the film. During an interview with Variety, she said:
“I told my manager in L.A., ‘There’s no way I can do this movie, and I’m not sure why they’re asking me. It’s crazy, the whole endeavor.’”
Marvel didn’t take no for answer, though, and they continued to pursue her. Why? Because Scarlett Johansson personally requested her and she was her one and only choice. Johansson said:
“One of the wonderful things about working for Marvel and their track record is a lot of incredible people raise their hand to work on these films. But it was only Cate for me from the beginning.
“It was very important to me that the person that directed this film had to have made a masterpiece and then some other good movies. One masterpiece, you know? And I really think ‘Lore’ is really so close to — I mean, it’s a perfect film. She was very elusive … It was very hard to find her.”
On top of Lore, Shortland also made Berlin Syndrome and Somersault, all of which center around a young woman in harrowing circumstances. Shortland later learned that Marvel offered her the job because Scarlett Johansson personally requested that she helm the long-awaited Black Widow film. Shortland went on to explain:
“We were quite tentative with each other. She told me how much she had liked some of my movies, and then I told her how much I have liked some of her performances. It was like a courtship. We made lists of, like, our top 20 favorite songs, and our top 20 favorite movies, and our top 20 favorite things, and we sent them to each other. And I remember the first time we Zoomed, my daughter was in the house. I was like, ‘Oh sorry, my daughter is making a lot of noise.’ And Scarlett said, ‘Oh, can I meet your daughter?’ What I got from that was she didn’t change when she spoke to me or my daughter. And that’s where I became very inquisitive about who she was, because that’s a rare thing.”
In the end, the collaboration between Shortland and Johansson paid off, and they delivered an awesome Marvel movie.