“There’s two states of your project at Marvel, which is it’s on fire, or there’s still a lot of work to be done.”
That’s how writerEric Pearsondescribes the process of making a Marvel movie, and he should know. His first Marvel Studios credit was way back in 2011 with the Marvel One-ShotThe Consultant, after which he wrote three more One-Shot short films before working on theAgent CarterABC series and, finally, earning a screenwriting credit onThor: Ragnarok. During his time at Marvel, Pearson has been called in as an uncredited writer to help out on projects ranging fromAnt-ManandSpider-Man: HomecomingtoAvengers: Infinity WarandAvengers: Endgame, and his most recent effort is the long-awaitedBlack Widow.
Pearson was brought onBlack Widowafter two other writers,Jac SchafferandNed Benson, had worked on the script (they ultimately earned “Story By” credit while Pearson is the sole credited screenwriter), and I recently spoke with him about his experience crafting this long-awaited solo movie – and final farewell – to Scarlett Johansson’s fan-favorite character that, thankfully, was worth the wait.
During our interview, Pearson talked about what was (desire for a family dynamic) and wasn’t (villain plot) there when he signed on, and how he set about creating the big Taskmaster identity twist. He also talked about bringing Yelena (Florence Pugh) into the fold as an emotional foil to Natasha and the excitement with which he tackled the character. Pearson also confirmed theBlack Widowcredits scenewas written beforeJulia Louis-Dreyfusappeared inThe Falcon and the Winter Soldier, and talked about how that scene came together and how his first version was five pages long. And finally, Pearson addressed those rumors thatRobert Downey Jr.was somehow going to make a cameo in the film.
It’s a far-too-brief albeit insightful interview with a man who has become a go-to at Marvel Studios when it comes to crafting some of their biggest and most important films.Black Widowis now playing in theaters and is available on Disney+ with Premier Access.
RELATED:Olga Kurylenko on ‘Black Widow’ and Marvel’s Secrecy on Set
I’m curious when you first signed onto the project, and what kind of shape the script was in at that point?
ERIC PEARSON: Well, there was, I came on, I believe my first call about it was December. I don’t know, again, time’s tricky right now. But I’m pretty sure that my first time going over to London was in March of 2019. But I had been talking to them before, I had Skyped a little bit, and Marvel, and [director] Cate [Shortland], and Scarlett, and Brian [Chapek] had all, they had a bunch of pieces that they were excited about working with the family dynamic. They knew they wanted to have a family dynamic, a bit of a prologue, and kind of a getting the band back together as the bone structure for the story. [When I came on, the script] needed an appropriate kind of villain plot thread to get all the character dynamics honed in. Which honestly, having written Ragnarok, and helped [Christopher] Markus and [Stephen] McFeely withAvengers Infinity WarandEndgame— these big movies that are just, they’re always works in progress. I had the joke duringWidow, which is there’s two states of your project at Marvel, which is it’s on fire, or there’s still a lot of work to be done. So the best grade you’re able to get in a pass fail way is still a lot of work to be done because we’re always just working on it, whether it’s in pre-production, or with actors, and then with editors. And post-production, there’s always tweaks up until the very end.
Well in this one, the big secret is the identity of Taskmaster. And for a year now, since the promotion started before the pandemic, a lot of people assumed it was Rachel Weisz’s character. It turns out that’s not the case.
PEARSON: I’m trying to avoid, is that what’s out there?
That was the kind of prevailing theory, yeah.
PEARSON: It wasn’t what it actually was. That’s great.
So I was curious, was it always going to be Dreykov’s daughter in there? When did you hit upon the idea of who Taskmaster would be underneath the mask?
PEARSON: It was really in building the Red Room, in the current state of the Red Room. Because I feel like the Red Room, similar to Hydra, these evil organizations, they grow and change and adapt. Hydra in Cap 1 is very different than Hydra in Winter Soldier. The Red Room in our story was very much completely hidden in the shadows. And I was building this idea of, also because we were confined to between Civil War and Infinity War, we needed a villain threat that could potentially succeed and go unnoticed. So in building that, and the idea of working with a mind control and then deconstructing the brain, and really chemically changing the brain, this mystery that we had we said, ‘Oh, it’d be really great if we could get the mystery of Dreykov’s daughter from Avengers 1 into this.’ And I thought about it.
Also the idea of Natasha’s dark past. I was very much in the camp of she has to have knowingly done something that would haunt her. It can’t just be, ‘Oh, I was going after a bad guy and some people accidentally got hurt.’ It has to be, ‘I chose to hurt an innocent, especially an innocent girl, as a means to an end.’ And then the idea of, okay, if that’s Dreykov’s daughter and he’s this guy who has the ability to manipulate and deconstruct the brain, what if in trying to save his daughter, we could rebuild it and discover this new photographic reflex thing where she’s not fully who she was, but she has this extra talent. That’s kind of how I came to it. And also I felt like for Natasha, the idea that there’s a secret, and a loose end in her past would be truly the worst thing for her. You always kind of want to confront your main character with their biggest fear.
Obviously Yelena is a huge character to introduce to the MCU, clearly in the credits scene she’s going to have a future. What was kind of your approach, or what were the important traits to get across in crafting that character?
PEARSON: I just wanted her to be fun. We were approaching this as a Natasha farewell first, but then, and thinking about it with a Natasha first kind of lens, it was Natasha is a naturally emotionally guarded person, so who is a good foil to bring in to force her to knock down those walls and be emotional? But it’s going to be someone who knows her very well, and is as dangerous as her, but is emotionally naked. Yelena, I love her introduction in Morocco more than anything, I think it’s so great how violent she is there. And then when she regains control of her faculties, just how much she spews out emotion. She’s very much, ‘I’m going to tell you what I think about this right now.’ And she seems very open, in contrast to Natasha. So I like that as a way to bring Natasha along in her journey, and also it was a lot of fun working with Florence too, who was very excited at the idea of this character who has all these spy assassin skills but not a ton of social skills. And that felt like a really fun, new style of character to bring into this world.
She’s fantastic. And that credit singer is really great too. And I know everything was jumbled because of the pandemic. Was that a credit singer you guys had always planned with Valentina? Was Julia Louis-Dreyfus supposed to be introduced inBlack Widowfirst and then show up inFalcon?
PEARSON: Yes. Yeah. It doesn’t affect the greater — well I don’t know, as far as I knew. I don’t know the full storyline with everything that’s going on in the future. As far as I know it didn’t affect anything. I just know that they told me we have plans to introduce this character Valentina, and it’s going to be played by Julia Louis-Dreyfus. And I couldn’t get to the computer fast enough. That tag scene was probably like five pages long because I was just so greedy. I was like, I want Yelena and Valentina, just back and forth, bouncing dialogue off of each other. And ultimately that’s never going to happen. You’re not going to have a full scene as a stinger at the end. So we went with the smaller version, but I was just so excited to get those two actors together, to get those two character dynamics together. And I also love taking an emotional moment, like Yelena at the grave, and then flushing it down the toilet with Valentina blowing her nose.
This is a farewell for Natasha, and it’s pretty contained story. But there were rumors that Robert Downey Jr. was going to have a cameo inBlack Widow. Were there ever any other considerations of bringing other MCU characters into this one? And what was that challenge for you of creating this nostalgic kind of look back into Black Widows past, while also moving the MCU forward?
PEARSON: I don’t remember. It was funny because I remember being in London when that rumor came out, Robert Downey Jr’s going to be in Black Widow and I was there and I was like, were you guys talking about this at all? And like, I had the script. I was like, he’s not in the script. I literally had no idea where that came from. And it was talking with all the people who were working on the movie, like who would say that? We had no idea. As far as I know, as far as I can remember, I don’t remember any other cameos. This was really more about taking the most emotionally guarded Avenger, and it was kind of a conscious choice too, to have her when she removes herself from the Avengers world to go on the run and meet up with this character, Mason, who she’s so comfortable with, to kind of put the audience off of like, wait a minute, we know you from six movies and we’re really comfortable with you. Who’s this guy? You’ve never told us about this guy. And this whole idea of like, no, there’s a whole other world in her past, and her background. So yeah, I can’t remember. And who knows? Maybe at the very beginning there was some talk, but I can’t remember, honestly. It didn’t last very long if it was.
[Editor’s note: After our interview, Pearsonrecalled an early versionof the screenplay included footage from Captain America: Civil War that would have technically served as a Robert Downey Jr. cameo.]
Black Widowis now playing in theaters and is available on Disney+ with Premier Access.
KEEP READING:‘Black Widow’ Composer Lorne Balfe on Making His MCU Debut and Starting Work on ‘Mission: Impossible 7’
