Sean P. Means: Marvel needs to solve its Black Widow problem

These should be the happiest days for Marvel Studios, the branch of the Walt Disney Studios that rakes in gazillions of dollars making movies about superheroes.

Last weekend saw the opening of "Avengers: Age of Ultron," the latest chapter in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (so called because words like "saga" or "franchise" are too puny for such a sweeping series). The movie took in $187.8 million in its opening weekend, the second-biggest opening ever — and first place was its 2012 predecessor, "The Avengers."

The completion of Marvel's Phase Two happens this summer with "Ant-Man," opening July 17. Then will come Phase Three, kicking off next summer with "Captain America: Civil War," and continuing through eight more movies through 2019 — including the two-part "Avengers: Infinity War" epic.

But Marvel has a problem, one growing to the point where the studio cannot ignore any longer.

In all 21 of the movies of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, going back to "Iron Man" in 2008 and forward to all that are in the works, only one — "Captain Marvel," set for release Nov. 2, 2018 — is centered on a female leading character.

The idea that female heroes can't carry a major action movie is ridiculously outdated in 2015 — particularly with a company that keeps hiring Joss Whedon, the director of both "Avengers" movies and a guy famous for creating action shows with strong female characters (including "Buffy the Vampire Slayer," "Dollhouse" and Marvel's "Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.").

But that notion apparently holds strong at Marvel, based on private emails posted this week on WikiLeaks as part of the massive Sony data hack.

In an email to Sony's Michael Lynton, sent last August, Marvel Entertainment CEO Ike Perlmutter listed off female-led superhero movies that bombed — using them as proof that nobody wants to see a woman at the front of a superhero movie.

The three Perlmutter listed were Marvel's "Electra" (2005) with Jennifer Garner, DC's "Catwoman" (2004) with Halle Berry and DC's "Supergirl" (1984) with Helen Slater. Never mind that all three movies, well, stunk — and that "Supergirl" was made 30 years ago, when the parents of most of today's teen moviegoers weren't even dating yet.

The howls of protest from Perlmutter's email were swift. Jessica Goldstein, writing for ThinkProgress, pointed out that there have been a lot of crappy male-driven superhero movies within that same time frame — "Green Lantern," "The Green Hornet," "Superman Returns" and "Daredevil" among them. But nobody argued that those movies proved people didn't want to see male-centered superhero films.

Goldstein also points out the number of cinematic movie heroines in this decade — "The Hunger Games' " Katniss Everdeen, "Divergent's" Tris Prior, "Twilight's" Bella Swan — who were the center of very successful action franchises.

For a Marvel executive to continue to harbor a bias against female superhero movies is also disappointing because the Marvel Cinematic Universe has, in its current cast of characters, a perfect female heroine being portrayed by a bankable action star: Scarlett Johansson's Black Widow.

Black Widow, aka Natasha Romanoff, has now appeared in four Marvel movies — "Iron Man 2," "Avengers," "Captain America: The Winter Soldier" and "Avengers: Age of Ultron" — and is scheduled to appear in "Captain America: Civil War." In that time, she has been shown as a deliciously complex character: an assassin trained by the Soviets under despicable conditions, who found a new home fighting for S.H.I.E.L.D., only to find her agency infiltrated by the evil HYDRA. "Age of Ultron" brought new revelations about Natasha, but I won't spoil them here.

Johansson, as Hollywood moguls like to say, can put butts in seats. Last year's action thriller "Lucy," with Johansson as a woman whose brain power increases to astonishing degrees, made $126 million domestically and an additional $332 million in the rest of the world. If a male-driven action movie made that kind of money, the sequel would have been greenlit in a heartbeat.

In the run-up to "Age of Ultron's" release last week, the news stories generated by Black Widow were about the sexism of people dealing with her. There was the interview in which co-stars Chris Evans and Jeremy Renner jokingly called Natasha a "slut" — a remark for which they later apologized. Then there was the revelation that Black Widow wasn't featured in "Age of Ultron"-related merchandise as much as her male counterparts — which drew Twitter criticism from Hulk portrayer Mark Ruffalo (who, as we know, is not someone you should make angry).

And, as a capper, "Saturday Night Live" perfectly satirized the situation last weekend with a trailer for a nonexistent "Black Widow" movie. It was a brilliant compilation of romantic-comedy clichés, with Natasha (played by Johansson) working at a fashion magazine and having a meet-cute in the park with Ultron — whom she starts dating, against the advice of her gaggle of superhero friends (with Thor essentially cast as the catty gay neighbor).

Marvel isn't the only Hollywood studio with this sexism problem. (Consider, for example, how long it has taken DC Comics and Warner Bros. to develop a Wonder Woman movie.) But Marvel is the ruler of the cinematic world right now, and by pushing more female-driven stories — and a stand-alone Black Widow movie would be a good start — the studio could put down a worn-out bit of Hollywood conventional wisdom once and for all.

Sean P. Means writes The Cricket in daily blog form at www.sltrib.com/blogs/moviecricket. Follow him on Twitter @moviecricket. Email him at spmeans@sltrib.com.