Rachel Weisz Didn’t Discuss Melina’s MCU Future After Black Widow

Warning: This post contains spoilers for Black Widow.

When signing onto Black Widow, Rachel Weisz didn’t discuss her MCU future playing Melina. Weisz is one of the many MCU newcomers who made their debuts in Black Widow, the long-awaited solo film centered on Scarlett Johansson’s Natasha Romanoff. Once scheduled for last year, the movie finally arrived this weekend after multiple COVID-related delays. Black Widow introduces audiences to Natasha’s pre-Avengers family, which includes Weisz’s Melina, a scientist working for the Red Room who posed as mother to Natasha and Yelena Belova (Florence Pugh). Rounding out the once-happy family is Alexei Shostakov (David Harbour), aka Red Guardian.

Even before Black Widow arrived, there was much intrigue surrounding Melina. Marvel inadvertently confirmed her last name to be Vostokoff well before the movie’s debut, all but confirming Weisz was playing the same character who is known as villain Iron Maiden in the comics. As those who have seen Black Widow will now know, Melina remains an ally to Natasha the whole way through, even after it looks like she’s betrayed the onetime Avenger.

As Melina ends Black Widow alive, it seems likely she will return to the MCU fold sometime in the future. However, Weisz doesn’t yet know what will come next for her. Speaking to Collider about the film, Weisz responded to the question of whether she discussed her Marvel future ahead of Black Widow. “I mean, it would be different for every actor, but for me, it was just for this film,” she said.

In the early days of the MCU, actors would sign on for 9 movies right away, even if they didn’t know what those movies would end up being. Marvel is no longer using this practice, so it makes sense that Weisz would have only discussed Black Widow when joining the franchise. That doesn’t mean Melina will never be seen again in the MCU, just that there seems to be more of a slow burn approach going on behind the scenes.

Right now, it isn’t clear if there will be a Black Widow 2. However, with Yelena steadily coming into her own within the MCU, it stands to reason she could go on to lead her own film. That could provide the perfect opening to bring Melina back for another adventure. Another option could see Melina and Alexei leading their own spin-off, or perhaps there will just be a future movie that brings unites them with the rest of the MCU. The possibilities are always endless when it comes to this franchise, and it will be quite interesting to see where the characters of Black Widow go next.

Source: Collider

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Rachel Labonte
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Rachel LaBonte is a news, feature, and movie review writer for Screen Rant with a deep passion for film and television. A graduate of Emerson College, she majored in Media Arts Production while specializing in screenwriting. She’s been a writer ever since high school when she realized she was rather good at it and joined as many entertainment news clubs as she could while in school. Most notably, she wrote for Emerson’s website Emertainment Monthly, and one of her film reviews won an Evvy (Emerson’s student awards) for Best Review. Her deep love of movies led to her working at a movie theater for five years, which she loved despite the angry customers. An avid reader who constantly buys books before reading the ones she already owns, Rachel is a huge fan of superheroes (especially of the Marvel variety) and wizards and will likely never be able to catch up on all the movies/TV shows she longs to watch.

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