The Marvel Cinematic Universe is known for constantly offering the public new content, both in theaters and streaming with a Disney+ subscription. It's been a fascinating few years since Avengers: Endgame hit theaters, with some peaks and valleys. One of the first movies to arrive during this time was Cate Shortland's Black Widow, which featured actor Ray Winstone as the villainous Dreykov. And the actor recently got honest about his frustrations during filming, and asking for the role to be recast.
Scarlett Johansson famously filed a lawsuit over Black Widow, which offered more of the mysterious character's backstory. Fans who spent years watching the Marvel movies in order were excited about this, but it turns out the movie's villain was originally handled much differently. In an interview with THR, Winstone spoke about how he originally developed the character with Shortland, saying:
We worked on what my character was going to be. He was like a pedophile running around among all these girls, and they’d become black widows. It was probably the best thing I’d done for a really long time.
While this was a plot point that as hinted at during Black Widow's theatrical cut, it sounds like Dreykov's relationship with the women of the Red Room was even more insidious originally. Alas, things ended up being changed during editing and reshoots.
During this profile, Winstone revealed that every one of this scenes would need to be reworked during Black Widow's reshoots. This was understandably frustrating for the actor, especially because he was so proud of the performance he gave during principal photography. As the 68 year-old performer put it:
So I said she should recast, but I was contracted, so I had to do it. I go back, they do my hair all nice, put me in the suit, and I couldn’t do it. There’s nothing worse than doing something, leaving it on the floor, and then being told it’s not right.
Ouch. While reshoots are a normal part of making a superhero movies, it sounds like Winstone had to craft an entirely new persona for Black Widow. While he as contractually obligated to participate, he would have preferred to give someone his role. Now I'm especially curious to see the OG footage of Dreykov from filming.
The pressure was on for Black Widow to deliver after the wild success of Infinity War and Endgame, which might be why so much was changed during reshoots. In the end many fans didn't even see it in theaters, as it was also released on Disney+ in the midst of the pandemic.
Black Widow is streaming now on Disney+ alongside most of the MCU as a whole. The next installment in the franchise hitting theater is Spider-Man: Brand New Day on July 31st as part of the 2026 movie release list.
