Thanks to the recently released Black Widow: The Official Movie Special Book we now have our best look yet at the movie’s mysterious villain, Taskmaster. The character cuts an intimidating presence in this newly released Black Widow concept art and series of stills, covered head-to-toe in armor and wielding a sword and shield.
#BlackWidow nos ofrece un nuevo vistazo a Taskmaster. pic.twitter.com/WPHxiZsf5N
— La Cosa Cine (@lacosacine) November 9, 2020
Taskmaster studies his opponents’ fighting style in order to mimic them and learn how to use it against them, something that will come in very handy when trifling with the likes of Black Widow and her highly skilled crew. The identity behind the mask of Taskmaster is currently unknown, with many believing that it will be either O-T Fagbenle or Rachel Weisz who is revealed as the villain.
“There’s a whole conspiracy theory that I’m Taskmaster,” Fagbenle said during an Instagram Live earlier this year, prompting his friend to respond that he probably is. “You’re trying to get it out as well?” Fagbenle replied, “I thought we spoke about this, I thought we were going to keep some s-t on the DL.”
Black Widow will provide some insight into the origins of one of the founding Avengers, even revealing details regarding the famous mission in Budapest. At birth, the Black Widow, aka Natasha Romanova, is given to the KGB, where she is groomed to become the ultimate operative. When the U.S.S.R. breaks up, the government tries to kill her, before the action moves to present-day New York, where she is now working as a freelance operative. Now, Natasha Romanoff suddenly finds herself alone and forced to confront a dangerous conspiracy with ties to her past. Pursued by a force that will stop at nothing to bring her down, Romanoff must deal with her history as a spy and the broken relationships left in her wake long before she became an Avenger.
Black Widow stars Scarlet Johansson reprising the role of Natasha Romanoff AKA Black Widow, Midsommar’s Florence Pugh as Yelena Belova, Stranger Things star David Harbour as Alexei Shostakov/Red Guardian, Avengers : Endgame’s William Hurt as Thaddeus Ross, The Departed’s Ray Winstone as Dreykov, The Handmaid’s Tale star O.T. Fagbenle as Rick Mason, and The Favourite’s Rachel Weisz as Melina Vostokoff.
David Harbour recently provided some more details regarding the direction of the movie and Natasha’s past saying, “The connection to [David Harbour’s character Alexei aka Red Guardian] and Black Widow is that they were set up as a spy family in America in the ’90s. So, Rachel Weisz’s character, Melina, was sort of the mom, Alexei was the dad, and Natasha and Yelena were their little kids. We see that in the beginning of the movie, and they sort of function as a family. So they knew each other from long ago and then they lost touch for almost twenty years. And when we pick up, Alexei’s had this deep knowledge of Natasha in a certain way that no one else had when she was a kid. He took her from the Red Room and also put her back into the Red Room because he believed in this cause.”
Marvel Studios recently pushed back their entire big screen line-up, with Black Widow now set to open on May 7th, 2021, more than a year after it was originally scheduled to be released. Black Widow’s new date has resulted in the upcoming Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings moving from its May 7th, 2021 release date to July 9th, 2021. Eternals, which was supposed to follow Black Widow is moving from February 12th, 2021 to November 5th, 2021.
This comes to us courtesy of Black Widow: The Official Movie Special Book which is now available in the US and Canada and is set for release in the UK next month.
