Hollywood’s afraid of movies about woman superheroes. Just because those awful Catwoman and Elektra bombed over a decade ago, DC and Marvel have both been reluctant to make big budget superhero movies starring women. DC’s at least working on a Wonder Woman film. Marvel’s announced its slate out through 2019, and although they’re going to make a movie starring the current Carol Danvers version of Captain Marvel, they have on plans to spotlight the most popular woman in their movies, the Black Widow, with her own film. (Also good look finding Avengers merchandise featuring Black Widow—the toy aisle’s basically the exclusive domain of Captain America, Iron Man, Thor and the Hulk.)
Obviously SNL thinks it’s time for a Widow standalone film. I’m not sure if Marvel would hire them to make that movie after this sketch from last night’s episode, though. This is a simple, obvious concept, but one that’s still funny, and SNL does a good job of capturing all the possible nuances within this idea. Maybe after this Hawkeye can star in a quiet family drama set in the heartland.