Black Widow went through many delays before landing a final release date, and while all those changes also meant reorganizing the rest of the upcoming Marvel movies, they helped the movie fit Phase 4 a lot better. After 10 years in the making, the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s Infinity Saga came to an end with Spider-Man: Far From Home after the events of Avengers: Infinity War and Avengers: Endgame, closing the arcs of most of the original Avengers and making way for a new wave of content. The MCU’s Phase 4 will cover both movies and TV shows, and the first movie in line is Black Widow, which will take viewers a few years back to reunite with Natasha Romanoff.

Set between Captain America: Civil War and Avengers: Infinity War, Black Widow will follow Natasha Romanoff (Scarlett Johansson) as she travels to Russia to hide while on the run following the Civil War conflict, in which she switched allegiances and ended up being on Steve Rogers’ side. Once in Russia, Natasha will reunite with her Russian family – Yelena Belova (Florence Pugh), Melina Vostokoff (Rachel Weisz), and Alexei Shostakov/Red Guardian (David Harbour) – and will come across a one-of-a-kind villain named Taskmaster, who has the ability to mimic the movements and fighting style of everyone they observe. After many delays due to the coronavirus pandemic, Marvel fans will finally get to enjoy Black Widow on July 9, and these changes ended up benefitting the movie.

Related: Why Black Widow's New Release Date Delay Is Good For The MCU

Black Widow was originally scheduled for a May 2020 release, but the pandemic pushed Disney to reorganize its whole MCU schedule. That was only the beginning of various delays for Black Widow, and in March 2021, Disney announced that it will be released on July 9 in theaters and simultaneously on Disney+ through Premier Access. Had it been released as originally planned, Black Widow would have been the first title from Phase 4 to be released, which would have made it feel like an outsider with the rest of the movies and TV shows from this new era.

Scarlett Johansson as Black Widow Natasha Romanoff in MCU Phase 4

The delays in the MCU’s calendar ended up making WandaVision the one that kicked off Phase 4, and was quickly followed by The Falcon and the Winter Soldier and Loki. What these TV shows have in common are the themes of loss and grief, and they are dealing with it in different ways: WandaVision saw Wanda Maximoff (Elizabeth Olsen) trying to come to terms with the death of Vision, The Falcon and the Winter Soldier showed Sam and Bucky coping with Steve’s retirement (and Bucky still dealing with his past demons), and Loki is seeing the God of Mischief trying to come to terms with a life he hasn’t lived and saw in a projection. Black Widow will fit this quite well as it’s reuniting the audience with a character that died in Avengers: Endgame and whose death has been controversial, as many feel it did no justice to the character. Black Widow, then, instead of having the characters coping with her death, will bring closure to the audience.

Black Widow is kicking off the movie side of the MCU’s Phase 4 after all those TV shows, and while it can’t change the way Natasha’s arc ended, it can solve many questions about her past and bring a final adventure that will hopefully make up for the unsatisfying end she got in Avengers: Endgame.

Next: Black Widow: Everything We Know About Taskmaster’s Real Identity

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