Marvel Should Love Lucy

Comic-Con, the annual gathering of the geek world, happened over the weekend and due to some personal stuff I haven't been able to really pay attention to alot of it. Granted it looked like there really weren't any super mind-blowing news. In fact, the huge DC and Marvel panels' biggest news were the new Wonder Woman looking like Xena and Guardians of the Galaxy's sequel already being green-lighted. Marvel's panel was the one I paid attention to all weekend since the last time the Avengers cast got together, it was a nirvana-esque experience for me but with Joss Whedon not in attendance and no big reveals (Josh Brolin as Thanos? We all knew that already!), something was lacking.

That something BTW was the inevitable (I thought) announcement of a Black Widow movie starring this weekend's box office champ Scarlett Johansson. This tweet of mine from Saturday morning pretty much summed up my feelings:

Scarlet Johansson's rated-R LUCY is going to open to over $40mil. So @Marvel, about that Black Widow film.
— Ryan (@sortathatboy) July 26, 2014

If box office is the key concern for why Marvel still hasn't green-lighted a female-led film (blatantly ignoring the recent successes of Hunger Games, Maleficent, and Frozen of course), then the fact that this R-rated original film, whose main character happens to be a woman, making more than $42 million should have eradicated their doubts. Not to mention that Marvel still has the #1 film in America with Captain America: The Winter Soldier with Johansson as Black Widow pretty much as the co-lead. But oh maybe it's already in the pipeline as one of the many untitled Marvel films already slated on the schedule the next five years and they may have wanted to announce it when Johansson would be available in person (Johansson was a Comic-Con no-show due to her pregnancy). Or not and Marvel is stupid. It's their shared universe, but it would be in their best interest to lock down Johansson since she's having quite the year starting all the way back to last September with Don Jon and then Her followed up by Captain America, Under the Skin, and now Lucy. Can't wait to see more from her, Black Widow movie or something else.