Florence Pugh in Talks to Join Scarlett Johansson in 'Black Widow'

Rising actress Florence Pugh is in talks to star opposite Scarlett Johansson in Black Widow, Marvel’s stand-alone feature on the Avengers heroine.


Cate Shortland, the Australian filmmaker perhaps best known for the Nazi drama Lore, is directing the project, which is scheduled to shoot in June in London.


Plot details are being kept behind the Iron Curtain, but it will be an internationally set story centering on 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 Avenger.


Pugh will play a spy on the same level as Romanoff, likely her moral opposite.


Jac Schaeffer wrote the most recent draft for Black Widow.


Pugh, repped by WME and Bloom Hergott, already has spycraft on her résumé, having starred as an undercover agent on AMC’s miniseries The Little Drummer Girl. She also appeared in The Outlaw King with Chris Pine and the much-praised family drama Fighting With My Family.


Pugh's upcoming releases are also noteworthy: she has a part in Greta Gerwig’s Little Women, whose all-star cast includes Saoirse Ronan, Emma Watson and Meryl Streep, and she leads the cast of Midsommar, the much-anticipated horror movie from Ari Aster, the filmmaker behind Hereditary. The latter pic is set to open Aug. 9.