Scarlett Johansson. Photo: Marvel

When the new trailer for the Jennifer Lawrence assassin movie Red Sparrow came out recently, some framed it as the closest audiences would ever get to a solo Black Widow movie. But Marvel hinted today that it would not be outdone in the secret-Russian-hit-woman genre, and so has made the move of assigning a screenwriter to the possible Scarlett Johansson vehicle. Jac Schaeffer, who wrote and directed the 2009 movie TiMER and, more recently, did the screenplay for Olaf’s Frozen Adventure, has been tapped to write a Black Widow script. Variety reports that Marvel president Kevin Feige interviewed several other candidates before settling on Schaeffer, and that company executives also got together with Johansson to talk about goals for a stand-alone. This is a very early development step, but it’s the most concrete momentum a long-hoped-for Black Window movie has generated so far. Schaeffer is also currently working on two projects with Anne Hathaway, a remake of Dirty Rotten Scoundrels called Nasty Women and an alien-invasion comedy called The Shower (a very buzzy Black List script), both of which she wrote.