Scarlett Johansson suing Disney over Black Widow streaming release

The actor claims that the studio breached her contract by releasing her standalone Marvel adventure on Disney+

Scarlett Johansson is suing Disney over the recent release of Black Widow.

The actor is claiming that the studio’s decision to launch her first, and last, Marvel standalone film on Disney+ as well as cinemas is a breach of contract.

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Scarlett fever: why Black Widow has sparked a trend for red hair

What does a 163% surge in demand for red hair dye tell us about the way Marvel’s latest, and star Scarlett Johansson, have been marketed and received?

If you happen to see an unusually large number of women with red hair today, do not be alarmed. We haven’t been invaded by vikings again, nor is there a Nicola from Girls Aloud convention happening in your vicinity. There is a perfectly reasonable explanation for the sudden outbreak of redheads, and it is that Black Widow was recently released.

According to the website Justmylook, there has been a 163% spike in demand for the colour since the release of Black Widow, presumably because lots of people sat through two hours and 14 minutes of a film about a woman grappling with the psychological torment of knowing she was part of a Soviet military programme that brainwashed, sterilised and murdered hundreds of abandoned girls, only to think: “Ooh, I bet I’d look lovely with her hair.”

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Black Widow review – Scarlett Johansson, the Russian super spy with an electra complex

Great fun is had in giving us the backstory to the assassin’s place in the Marvel Cinematic Universe

The sensuous cough-syrup purr of Scarlett Johansson’s voice is something I’ve missed in lockdown; now it’s back with a throaty vengeance in the highly enjoyable standalone episode for which her character Black Widow was well overdue. It is co-written by WandaVision creator Jac Schaeffer and directed with gusto by Cate Shortland, with touches of Terminator 2 and Mission: Impossible but undoubtedly keeping the tonal consistency of a typical MCU melodrama.

This movie gives us the backstory to Black Widow’s presence in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, involving an origin-myth tale of family trauma, identity crisis and sibling rivalry with a pugnacious kid sister, Yelena, entertainingly played by Florence Pugh. Yelena can’t help mocking – but also maybe envying – Black Widow’s balletic fight stance which involves absurd posing and resembles the mane-tossing antics of a woman in a shampoo advert.

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