And our sec­ond major announce­ment of the week — Scar­lett Johans­son has been con­firmed as The Black Widow in Iron Man 2, replac­ing the sched­uled out Emily Blunt. This con­firms the rumors we reported on Valen­tines day.

This comes via Nikki Finke’s Dead­line Hol­ly­wood Daily, although unlike the recent Rourke deal, it seems like Johans­son did get ‘low-balled’ into this and a whole host of other Mar­vel movies, includ­ing The Avengers. Finke also reveals that Johans­son had pre­vi­ously screened for the part and didn’t get it.

I’ve already posted my scoop that Mickey Rourke will play the Russ­ian vil­lain in Iron Man 2 in a Mar­vel Stu­dios deal that started out low­ball and went up a lot. Now I’m told that Emily Blunt won’t be in the sequel and Black Widow will now be played by Scar­lett Johann­son. (Inter­est­ing because Scar­lett actu­ally screen-tested for the role and didn’t get it.) But I hear that, unlike Mickey’s money, the deal for her is “just the oppo­site, a ter­ri­ble deal made by CAA,” one of my insid­ers says. “It’s as bad as any deal that I’ve heard. It’s low­ball money. And it ties her to count­less movies, includ­ing that ensem­ble The Avengers, which is what makes this bru­tal for a lot of actors.”

How do you feel about Scar­lett get­ting the role? Although very tal­ented I do not see her fit­ting the part of the Black Widow — it just doesn’t feel right some­how; but I am per­fectly happy to be proved wrong.