The Handmaid’s Tale O-T Fagbenle joins Marvel’s Black Widow
Deadline is reporting that O-T Fagbenle (The Handmaid’s Tale) has been cast in a leading role opposite Scarlett Johansson in Marvel’s Black Widow film.
Fagbenle is best known for starring as Luke Bankole in Hulu’s Emmy Award-winning series The Handmaid’s Tale, which will return for season 3 on June 5. His credits also include Looking, The Interceptor, and Netflix’s The Five which is currently streaming.
Black Widow is a standalone feature that centers on Johansson’s Natasha Romanoff, a spy and assassin who grew up being trained by the KGB before breaking from their grasp and becoming an agent of SHIELD and an Avenger.
Other cast members include Golden Globe nominee David Harbour (Stranger Things, Hellboy), Florence Pugh (Fighting with My Family), and Oscar winner Rachel Weisz (The Favourite).
RELATED: David Harbour Joining Scarlett Johansson in Marvel’s Black Widow
Black Widow is said to be a prequel to the heroine’s first MCU appearance in Iron Man 2. This presumably means that Natasha will be portrayed in a less scrupulous light than bef0re. In other words, viewers might gain insight into her time as a KGB assassin before Nick Fury and Clint Barton recruited her to join S.H.I.E.L.D. If Pugh is indeed playing Natasha’s moral opposite in the movie as was described, this potentially means that her ethical compass is more robust than Johansson’s ruthless killer.
The movie is being directed by Cate Shortland (Lore) from a script by Jac Schaeffer. Plot details are being kept under wraps as the project heads towards a production start in June in London.
(Photo Credit: Getty Images)
