Scarlett Johansson and Florence Pugh in Black Widow. Image courtesy of Marvel Cinemas hobbled along for a while there: first shuttered by the pandemic, then with little to offer viewers beyond studio fare more abandoned than released, and unable to coax forth a housebound populace so conditioned by streaming that a trip to the cinema seemed purest inconvenience. The lobbies grew ghostly, the trailers for future releases now promises unfulfilled. The title of the new Bond film, No Time to Die, gained an accidental irony. Walking past a poster for the film, forever “coming soon”, the stoicism on Daniel Craig’s beautiful, rugged face now scanned as mild annoyance, like a passenger waiting for a train infinitely delayed. All those blockbusters and their overwhelming advertising campaigns had to cool their jets for a year or so, but with the release of Marvel’s