Image via Marvel Studios
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Black Widow, out now on Disney+ and in theaters, is the first Marvel Cinematic Universe film to be released in over two years. On its opening weekend, it earned $60 million from on-demand sales and an additional $159 million from the global box office. This past weekend has brought the global take to $264 million total.
The film is one of the grittier entries in the MCU thus far, more in the vein of Captain America: The Winter Soldier than Guardians of the Galaxy. For over a decade, we’ve heard Natasha Romanov allude to the “red” in her ledger. In Black Widow, we get a small taste of the red that Natasha grew up in, enabled, and ultimately escaped.
The movie, predictably, does not change Natasha’s ultimate Endgame fate. This may be the last time we see Scarlett Johannson as Black Widow, and if so, this is a great movie for her to go out on. It solidifies Natasha’s legacy, and it begins one for Yelena Belova—played by Florence Pugh—who may eventually adopt the Black Widow moniker herself.
Here are 21 Easter Eggs and references that stood out in Black Widow, the first film in the MCU’s Phase 4 rollout.
2.Nine times
As Black Widow, Scarlett Johannson has appeared in nine MCU films. Her first appearance was in Iron Man 2, where she disguised herself under the alias Natalie Rushman, as a notary of the Stark Industries legal department.
3.Upside down
A lot of the gestures and phrases from the beginning or middle of the movie are later paid off or repeated in a different context, near the end of the movie. When the girls are playing in the backyard, they notice they’re both upside down and comment upon it. After a fight near the end of the movie, they make a similar comment when they’re both lying on the ground, side-by-side.
Another example: when they were younger, the sisters greeted each other and expressed their love by touching their foreheads together and whistling. Yelena repeats both the whistle and the forehead gesture at Natasha’s grave during the post-credits sequence.
4."American Pie"
The family sings Don McLean’s “American Pie” during their car ride. The song is a tribute to Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens, and the Big Bopper, who all perished in the same plane crash in 1959. More broadly, the song is about a loss of American innocence during the social upheaval of the 1960s. Thematically, Natasha and Yelena have a loss of innocence, when their “father” Alexei is hunted down for being a Russian spy, and Yelena realizes that her family isn’t really hers.
5.Keep Your Heart
At the beginning of the movie, Melina tells a child Natasha to never let them take her heart. Melina alludes back to this midway through the movie when she asks an adult Natasha how she managed to keep her heart.
6."Smells Like Teen Spirit"
The song that plays over the opening credits sequence is “Smells Like Teen Spirit,” by ‘90s grunge/alternative band Nirvana. The singer is Malia J, who has previously had success covering famous popular songs, but never to this extent. Her Nirvana take is currently a Top 5 song on the iTunes charts.
Nirvana’s iconic music video has yellow-tinged lighting, which is also present in the Black Widow’s credits sequence.
7.Ross cameo
William Hurt reprises his role as U.S. Secretary of State Thaddeus Ross. Ross had a prominent role in orchestrating the Sokovia Accords, a global agreement that would have placed The Avengers under the jurisdiction of a United Nations panel. Ross threatens to arrest Natasha in this scene, which chronologically places it between Captain America: Civil War and Avengers: Infinity War.
8.Nick Mason
Nick Mason, who supplies Natasha with necessities when she goes on the run, is also a character in the comics, where he is known as The Agent, a freelance technology expert and agent with expert knowledge of the criminal underworld.
9.A reimagined Taskmaster
Taskmaster is greatly reinterpreted from his comic portrayal. In the comics, he is a male mercenary and former S.H.I.E.L.D. agent named Tony Masters, who has the unique ability to physically copy the fighting styles that he sees. The movie version of Taskmaster retains this ability but is assisted by technology in copying moves, rather than relying on photographic memory. Taskmaster is also reimagined as Dreykov’s daughter, who Natasha nearly killed during an assassination attempt on Dreykov.
10.Meet Yelena
Like Natasha, Yelena Belova was an operative trained in the Red Room, where she was subject to a brutal, Darwinian training regiment, which included a non-consensual hysterectomy. Unlike Natasha, who was psychologically conditioned, Yelena was controlled more directly via drugs. In the comic continuity, Yelena takes on the Black Widow mantle, which makes it likely that her movie version will follow suit.
Yelena is played by Florence Pugh, who previously found success in horror film Midsommar and period drama Little Women.
11.What Happened in Budapest
The prior MCU films alluded to a mission that both Hawkeye and Natasha undertook when they were younger. We find out in Black Widow that “Budapest” refers to her assassination attempt on Dreykov, after which she defected to S.H.I.E.L.D. and put herself on a more ethical path. The attack, which brought down a building, involved killing Dreykov’s daughter as a means of confirming his presence. Unfortunately for Natasha, both dad and daughter survived.
12.Total poser
In one of the funniest scenes, Yelena makes fun of Natasha’s penchant for posing during her fight scenes. It’s a metajoke, and Yelena even comments that it’s almost as if Natasha thinks someone is always watching her. Later in the movie, Yelena tries posing and is subsequently disgusted with herself.
13.Captain Russia?
The Red Guardian is the Russian equivalent to Captain America. Like Steve Rogers, Alexei Shostakov was injected with a super soldier serum, and he became the public face for the Soviet armed forces. But when the Soviet Union fell, Alexei slowly faded into obscurity. In the comics, the character only lasted for two issues in 2005 before being killed by Captain America.
14.Loki's taunting
Alexei’s reference to the women’s ledgers, dripping with red, is a direct callback to when Loki taunted Natasha in The Avengers when he said there was too much red in her ledger to wash away.
15.Iron Maiden
Melina Vostokoff is largely a good person in this movie, who has done what she must to survive in post-communist Russia. But in the comics, she is Iron Maiden, a mercenary assassin who competes with Black Widow for notoriety.
16.The digital mask
Natasha wears a digital mask to impersonate Melina and infiltrate the Red Room. She used the same trick in Captain America: Winter Soldier to get close to Alexander Pierce, a high-level Hydra operative who had infiltrated the U.S. government.
17.Thank You
After tricking Dreykov into revealing his plan for world domination, Natasha says to him, “Thank you for your cooperation.” She said the same thing to Loki in The Avengers, when she also tricked him into revealing his plan.
In both instances, Natasha fakes vulnerability to lower her targets’ defenses. They’re both excellent examples of how Black Widow plays into sexist tropes and subverts them to her advantage.
18.Vest origin
This scene, in which Yelena gives Natasha her vest, explains why Natalie is wearing it in Infinity War. Both women appreciate the vest’s versatility and abundance of pockets.
19.Closing the Loop
The movie makes efforts in its final moments to close the narrative gap between itself and Avengers: Infinity War. She says she has to help break some friends out of prison, referring to when Captain America stormed the RAFT facility at the end of Civil War.
Scarlett’s hair is cut short and dyed blonde to match her hair in Infinity War. The flying craft that Mason secures for Natasha is later seen in Infinity War, after she helps to rescue Scarlet Witch and Vision from the Children of Thanos.
20.Fanny
In the post-credits scene, when Yelena goes to visit Natasha’s grave, she brings her new dog, who she named “Fanny.” It’s a tribute to Natasha; earlier in the film, we learn that one of her aliases is Fanny Longbottom.
21.The end credits sequence
In the end credits sequence, Julia Louis-Dreyfuss appears as Contessa Valentina Allegra de Fontaine, where she gives Yelena orders to track down Hawkeye, who she claims is responsible for Natasha’s death. This appears to be a direct tie-in to the upcoming Disney+ series Hawkeye.
Contessa made her first appearance in the Disney+ series The Falcon and the Winter Soldier. Just as in the end credits sequence, her motivations were ambiguous, though leaning towards sinister. In the comics, she was a S.H.I.E.L.D. operative who was a double agent for Hydra, and a foe of Nick Fury’s.
22.Mutant reference
Ursa, the massive prisoner who Alexei arm-wrestled in prison, is actually comic book character Ursa Major. The actor who portrayed Ursa, Olivier Richters, announced on Instagram that he is the first mutant in the MCU. Could the X-Men be on their way in Phase 5?