Chris Evans to Quit Acting Post-Marvel, Scarlett Johansson Still Wants a Solo Black Widow Movie
Sorry, Chris Evans fans, but after the actor finally hangs up his shield, whenever that is, he has no intention of returning to the movies… in front of the camera, anyway. I’m gonna go re-watch Sunshine and be sad.
“If I’m acting at all,” said Evans to Variety, “it’s going to be under Marvel contract, or I’m going to be directing. I can’t see myself pursuing acting strictly outside of what I’m contractually obligated to do.” Evans already has one film as a director under his bet, the indie drama 1:30 Train, which he filmed this winter. “I’ve known for a while I wanted to direct,” he explains. “But [time] never really opens up. There’s another movie to do, there’s another acting job. It just got to a point where I was like, you know what — I have to do this.”
Evans’ Marvel contract is for six movies, three of which are in the can and one of which, The Avengers: Age of Ultron, is currently filming. (Evans’ Thor: The Dark World cameo doesn’t count.) At first Evans’ contract was for nine movies, but Marvel said:
“if these movies take off and do very well, and my life changes and I don’t respond well, I don’t have the opportunity to say, listen, I need a fucking break. That just scared me… They called back and they tweaked the deal. It went from nine to six. I said no again… My family was even going, ‘Are you sure you’re making the right decisions?’ It started to feel like maybe this is what I’m supposed to do.”
It took a call from one Robert Downey Jr, reminding Evans of of “all sorts of other freedoms” a big-budget franchise affords, to get Evans onboard. Thanks, RDJ. Evans hasn’t completely closed the door on acting, in Marvel movies or otherwise: “For all I know, in five years, I might say, ‘Shit, I miss acting.’ Right now, I just want to get behind the camera and make movies.” Still, as far as Cap is concerned, “I bet by 2017, I’ll be done.”
Might one of those pre-2017 movies be a solo Black Widow outing? There’s nothing definitive on that front from Marvel Studios or its president, Kevin Feige—when is there ever?—but Scarlett Johansson‘s up for it. At the London premiere of Winter Soldier, she said to reporters:
“If you want to see a Black Widow spin-off movie, then I want to see it. We’ll see. We will put the request into Marvel tomorrow.”
An off-hand comment intended to be nothing more than a fun sound byte? Yep. Will I still be glaring in Marvel’s general direction until they finally commit to making a female superhero film? Yyyyyyep.
(via: Variety, The Guardian)
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