• Scarlett Johansson missed the Cannes premiere of Paper Tiger because she’s currently filming the Exorcist reboot for Universal
• Director James Gray tried to FaceTime her during the standing ovation — she didn’t pick up
• Gray read a heartfelt letter from Johansson aloud at the next day’s press conference
• The film earned a standing ovation of somewhere between six and ten minutes at the Grand Théâtre Lumière
• Critics are calling it Gray’s best film yet, with Adam Driver drawing career-best notices

James Gray’s Paper Tiger arrived at the 2026 Cannes Film Festival to one of the most rapturous receptions of the year — a roaring standing ovation, a crowd that included Cate Blanchett, Julianne Moore, and Demi Moore, and the kind of critical heat that makes awards season conversations start in May. The only thing missing was one of its stars.

Scarlett Johansson was not in the South of France on Saturday night. She’s currently on set filming the Exorcist reboot for Universal, directed by Mike Flanagan — billed as an entirely new story, not connected to the existing franchise — and her schedule simply couldn’t be moved. Adam Driver and Miles Teller flanked Gray on the red carpet, and the crowd showed up for all of them. But Johansson’s absence was felt.

Gray, visibly moved by the response, actually pulled out his phone during the ovation and tried to FaceTime her so she could hear it. She didn’t pick up.

The next morning, at the film’s press conference, he made sure she was there in spirit. Gray read a letter Johansson had written — one that didn’t explain her absence but didn’t need to. What it did instead was something rarer.

Johansson’s Letter to Gray

“Working with James and this extraordinary cast was one of the great pleasures of my career,” she wrote. “I feel so fortunate to have been part of a story so deeply rooted in what matters most: human connection, identity and the way our values evolve across generations.”

Then, addressing Gray directly — who was standing there reading it aloud — she got personal: “James, I know you are reading this right now and this part will make you genuinely queasy. My apologies. But I want you to know how much it means to me to have been part of something that you created with such care and intention that came from the depths of your artistic soul.”

She closed with something that felt less like a standard press quote and more like a genuine statement of belief: “Cinema has this rare and remarkable power to connect us to one another through a shared experience. It happens in the dark, where we can’t see each other’s faces, and yet somehow we can feel each other’s presence, each other’s empathy. That collective empathy is something we could certainly use more of right now.”

Gray, for his part, had said something similar the night before. Standing in front of the cheering Grand Théâtre Lumière crowd, visibly overwhelmed, he told the audience: “Without you there is no cinema. Cinema needs you, and cinema needs you guys more than ever. Really, this is a very important time, and Cannes is so important for that reason.”

What the Film Is About

Paper Tiger is set in 1986 Queens, and it follows two brothers — Gary (Driver), a slick ex-NYPD detective turned security entrepreneur, and Irwin (Teller), a straight-laced engineer living quietly with his wife Hester (Johansson) and their two teenage sons. When Gary convinces Irwin to consult on a lucrative Gowanus Canal cleanup project backed by Russian businessmen, neither of them fully grasps what they’re walking into. By the time they do, the mob has their home address, their family is being terrorized, and there’s no clean way out.

What the film layers on top of that crime thriller engine is something much more devastating: Hester, in the middle of all of it, receives a terminal diagnosis and keeps it from everyone, quietly trying to find a way to protect her family from the outside while unraveling from within.

The film was originally conceived as a companion piece to Gray’s 2022 Cannes entry Armageddon Time — Anne Hathaway and Jeremy Strong were initially attached to play the parents — but scheduling conflicts led to recasting, and Gray took the material in a darker, more heightened direction. Johansson and Teller now play the roles loosely based on Gray’s own parents, and by all accounts the shift worked out better than anyone could have anticipated.

The Reviews Are Extraordinary

Critics have been nearly unanimous in calling this Gray’s finest work. The Hollywood Reporter called it “arguably the director’s best film,” saying the cast is “in blazing form and full command here in a bruising movie that reveals the heavy price of pursuing the American Dream too recklessly.” IndieWire went further, declaring that “Adam Driver gives a career-best performance” in what it called “a devastating tragedy” — “like all of James Gray’s best films, Paper Tiger is both sweepingly mythic and hauntingly personal all at once.”

Time magazine put it this way: “Some thrillers are enjoyable enough, and suspenseful enough, while you’re watching them, and vaporize the instant the credits roll. But there’s another, much rarer kind of thriller: one that follows you home, giving you the feeling you’re being shadowed by a thief, someone or something who stirs in you a fear of loss that wasn’t there before. Paper Tiger is that second kind.”

The Guardian gave it four stars and called it a “heavyweight saga.” The Telegraph, also four stars, singled out Johansson as “terrific in this grubbily engrossing crime thriller.” Deadline’s review highlighted a chase sequence through a wheat field — Gary evading mob pursuers, shot both from within and above the towering stalks — as reminiscent of the crop duster scene in North by Northwest, calling it “the single finest scene Gray has ever staged.”

Not everyone was fully on board. Variety called it a film “engineered to be seen as powerful,” with “more atmosphere than plausibility,” and suggested Gray remains “an ace director who’s still being undercut by the holes in his screenplays.” Next Best Picture found it a lesser entry in his filmography overall, even while acknowledging “flashes throughout of the filmmaker at his absolute best.”

But those dissenting voices are a small minority in what has been an overwhelmingly enthusiastic critical response. Neon — which has won the Palme d’Or six years running — holds U.S. distribution rights, and the awards conversation has already started.

Gray has premiered six films at Cannes — The Yards, We Own the Night, Two Lovers, The Immigrant, Armageddon Time, and now this — and has never taken home a prize. Given what critics are saying, and given the reception in that theater on Saturday night, that streak may finally be about to end.

Johansson, meanwhile, also had another reason to be proud this week at Cannes: her directorial debut, Eleanor the Great, world premiered at the festival. She just couldn’t be in two places — or three — at once.

The post Scarlett Johansson Misses ‘Paper Tiger’ Cannes Premiere appeared first on Cream.

• Scarlett Johansson missed the Cannes premiere of Paper Tiger because she’s currently filming the Exorcist reboot directed by Mike Flanagan.
• Director James Gray tried to FaceTime her during the film’s standing ovation — she didn’t pick up.
• Gray read a heartfelt letter from Johansson at the press conference the following day.
• Critics are calling the film Gray’s best work, with Adam Driver earning particular praise for a career-best performance.
• Paper Tiger has been acquired by Neon for North American distribution.

James Gray had his phone out and everything. As Paper Tiger held the Grand Théâtre Lumière in a standing ovation Saturday night at the Cannes Film Festival — a roar that lasted somewhere between seven and ten minutes depending on who you ask — Gray reportedly tried to FaceTime Scarlett Johansson so she could be part of the moment. She didn’t pick up.

It was the kind of detail that perfectly captured the bittersweet reality of the evening: a crime drama earning one of the festival’s most enthusiastic receptions in years, with one of its three stars thousands of miles away on another set entirely. Johansson is currently filming Universal’s Exorcist reboot directed by Mike Flanagan, an all-new story unconnected to the original franchise, and her scheduling had already required some careful navigation when she signed on late last year.

Co-stars Adam Driver and Miles Teller were both on the Croisette to soak up the love. Johansson was not — and her absence was felt.

The Letter That Made Gray Queasy (By Design)

At the press conference the next day, Gray addressed the empty chair by reading a letter Johansson had sent. She didn’t explain why she couldn’t be there, but she apologized, and she did something else: she called her shot on exactly how Gray would react.

“Working with James and this extraordinary cast was one of the great pleasures of my career,” she wrote. “I feel so fortunate to have been part of a story so deeply rooted in what matters most: human connection, identity and the way our values evolve across generations. I’m sorry I can’t be there with you today. James, I know you are reading this right now and this part will make you genuinely queasy. My apologies.”

She continued: “But I want you to know how much it means to me to have been part of something that you created with such care and intention that came from the depths of your artistic soul. The consideration and sensitivity towards the human condition in this film is so evident on screen, every frame of it, and I am so extraordinarily proud to have been part of it.”

She closed with something that felt less like a press release and more like a genuine belief: “Cinema has this rare and remarkable power to connect us to one another through a shared experience. It happens in the dark, where we can’t see each other’s faces, and yet somehow we can feel each other’s presence, each other’s empathy. That collective empathy is something we could certainly use more of right now.”

Gray, for his part, had already telegraphed just how much this collaboration meant to him. “Scarlett’s last day on set was just about one of the hardest days I’ve had — I was so sad,” he told The Hollywood Reporter ahead of the premiere. “It took me a long time to get over it. Maybe that’s too corny, I don’t know. But it is true.”

The Film Gray Was Always Meant to Make

Paper Tiger is Gray’s sixth film to premiere in competition at Cannes — following The Yards, We Own the Night, Two Lovers, The Immigrant, and Armageddon Time — and the one critics are already saying might finally win him the Palme d’Or he’s never taken home.

Set in 1986 Queens, the film is a noirish crime drama that Gray originally conceived as a companion piece to Armageddon Time, his 2022 semi-autobiographical drama. It opens with an Aeschylus quote — “Let there be wealth without tears; enough for the wise man who will ask no further” — and then proceeds to show you exactly what happens to the people who don’t heed that warning.

Driver plays Gary Pearl, a smooth-talking ex-cop who draws his more cautious brother Irwin (Teller) into a business deal with the Russian mob involving the toxic Gowanus Canal. Johansson plays Hester, Irwin’s wife and the quiet emotional center of the story — a Queens mom privately receiving devastating medical news while her family’s world unravels around her.

The casting wasn’t originally this trio. Anne Hathaway and Jeremy Strong, who played a version of Gray’s parents in Armageddon Time, were initially set to reprise those roles. When scheduling conflicts pulled both out, Gray reimagined the project — leaning into something more heightened, more melodramatic in the classical sense, and ultimately more personal.

Gray had wanted to work with Johansson for years and assumed she had no interest. “I’ve been kind of obsessed with working with Scarlett for a long time so I had total pessimism about it,” he admitted. Johansson, who was listening in on the same Zoom call when he said this, barely suppressed a smirk before firing back: “I won’t comment on the pessimism part…but James and I have met before to discuss different things, so he’s actually not being totally forthcoming. He did know that I was interested.”

What sealed it was the script. “I was like, ‘Oh, I know I can do this. I don’t necessarily know how I’m going to do it, but I know that there’s something here that I can do and that I can be additive,'” she said. “It had so many elements that I loved. It’s a big story inside of a small story.”

Who Hester Pearl Really Is

Johansson dug deep into the character in ways that were clearly personal. “I liked the idea of Hester being feminine and soft and graceful because she has a lot of chutzpah inside her,” she said. “She loves fashion magazines and going to the movies — she loves romantic comedies and all things romantic — and window shopping. All of those things are such an important part of who she is and how she presents herself. She should be in the middle of her life and striving for more — vivacious and full of life. That’s how I envisioned her.”

The Queens accent and the curls and the big emotional swings came naturally — maybe too naturally, at times. Gray would occasionally pump the brakes. “James would sometimes say to me, ‘It’s too much: You’re not a yenta from Brownsville!'” Johansson recalled with a laugh. Gray defended her: “Scarlett would never do something that wasn’t real. You have to be careful because it can be totally real, but it will fall outside the realm of the language of the movie.”

The role hit a nerve for Johansson beyond just the accent and the period details. “Women give up their dream for their husband and take a step back, and the dream becomes more of a dream for their family. It’s so common. I’ve seen it in my friends, I’ve seen it in my family,” she said. “I just know in my bones what that is — there’s a sadness about it and a beauty about it. It’s such a bittersweet thing.”

What the Critics Are Saying

The notices have been largely strong, with some calling it outright the best film of Gray’s career. The Hollywood Reporter declared it “arguably the director’s best film,” writing that “Gray and his superb cast are in blazing form and full command here in a bruising movie that reveals the heavy price of pursuing the American Dream too recklessly.” Deadline called it “riveting,” singling out a chase sequence through a wheat field as “the single finest scene Gray has ever staged” — one that drew comparisons to the crop duster sequence in North by Northwest.

Indiewire went furthest on Driver, calling his performance “career-best” and the film itself “a devastating tragedy” that is “both sweepingly mythic and hauntingly personal all at once.” The Guardian gave it four stars, calling it a “heavyweight saga,” while the Telegraph also awarded four stars and specifically praised Johansson as “terrific in this grubbily engrossing crime thriller.”

Time magazine put it simply: “Some thrillers are enjoyable enough, and suspenseful enough, while you’re watching them, and vaporize the instant the credits roll. But there’s another, much rarer kind of thriller: one that follows you home… Paper Tiger is that second kind.”

Not everyone was fully converted. Variety called the film more atmospheric than plausible and suggested Gray is “an ace director who’s still being undercut by the holes in his screenplays.” Next Best Picture found it uneven, saying there are “flashes throughout of the filmmaker at his absolute best” but that the whole doesn’t quite match the parts.

Neon — which has won the Palme d’Or for the past six consecutive years — holds North American distribution rights. The film runs just under two hours.

Johansson also has another Cannes credit this year: her directorial debut Eleanor the Great world premiered at the 2025 festival. Between that, Paper Tiger, and the Flanagan Exorcist reboot in production, she is having a remarkable stretch — even if she couldn’t be there to take her bow for this one.

Gray’s letter reading at the press conference said everything, really. She knew it would make him queasy. She did it anyway. That’s the kind of trust you build when you make something that comes from, as she put it, “the depths of your artistic soul.”

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• James Gray’s Paper Tiger premiered at Cannes to a standing ovation lasting several minutes at the Grand Théâtre Lumière
• Gray tried to FaceTime Scarlett Johansson during the applause, but she didn’t pick up — she’s currently filming the Exorcist reboot
• Adam Driver and Miles Teller walked the red carpet; Cate Blanchett, Julianne Moore, and Pawel Pawlikowski were spotted applauding in the audience
• NEON, which has won the Palme d’Or six years running, has already secured North American distribution rights
• Paper Tiger marks Gray’s sixth film to premiere at Cannes — and he still hasn’t taken home a prize

James Gray has always had a thing with Cannes. Saturday night, Cannes had a thing right back.

Gray’s Paper Tiger — his first film since 2022’s Armageddon Time — debuted to a thunderous standing ovation at the Grand Théâtre Lumière, with audiences on their feet for somewhere between six and ten minutes depending on who you ask. (Festival ovation timing is an inexact science, and everyone’s stopwatch tells a slightly different story.) What’s not up for debate: the room was electric, and Gray, standing at the front of it, looked genuinely overwhelmed.

“I have to say, as you probably can tell, looking at my face, I’m more comfortable behind the camera than in front of it,” he told the crowd. Then, visibly moved, he got to the heart of it: “Without you there is no cinema. Cinema needs you, and cinema needs you guys more than ever. Really, this is a very important time, and Cannes is so important for that reason, and you are so important for that reason. So it always moves me greatly to see you here in this theater where I have very many memories.”

He wasn’t wrong about the memories. Paper Tiger is his sixth film to premiere on the Croisette, following Armageddon Time, The Immigrant, Two Lovers, We Own the Night, and The Yards — a run that stretches back to 2000. He also served on the competition jury in 2019. The man is practically a fixture of the festival at this point, even if a Palme d’Or has continued to elude him.

Brothers, the Mob, and 1980s Queens

Paper Tiger is a gritty crime drama set in 1980s Queens, following Hester and Irwin — played by Scarlett Johansson and Miles Teller — a couple raising a family when Irwin’s flashy brother (Adam Driver) pulls him into a moneymaking scheme that goes catastrophically wrong. What starts as opportunity quickly becomes something darker: the family finds themselves terrorized by the Russian mob, their bond fraying under the pressure, betrayal creeping in where it once seemed impossible.

Gray, speaking to The Hollywood Reporter ahead of the premiere, was clear-eyed about what he was going for. “To be very pretentious about it, the intention was to try to make a very classical drama,” he said. “People sometimes shit on that idea, ‘classical’ — they equate it with ‘old-fashioned,’ but the two are not the same thing. Internal conflict, struggle, love, emotion — that is never old-fashioned.”

Johansson, for her part, was drawn to the scope of it. “It had so many elements that I loved,” she told THR. “It’s a big story inside of a small story.” Of her character Hester — a stay-at-home mom with quiet ferocity beneath the surface — she said, “I liked the idea of Hester being feminine and soft and graceful because she has a lot of chutzpah inside her.”

The FaceTime That Went Unanswered

Johansson wasn’t in Cannes on Saturday night. She’s currently in production on Universal’s Exorcist prequel, which kept her from making the trip to the South of France. Driver and Teller were there, walking the red carpet alongside Gray and soaking up the crowd’s enthusiasm — big waves of cheers rolled in for both of them.

But Gray wasn’t ready to let Johansson miss the moment entirely. Mid-standing ovation, he pulled out his phone and tried to FaceTime her so she could hear the room. She didn’t pick up.

It’s the kind of detail that writes itself. A director at the peak of a career-defining night, the Grand Théâtre Lumière roaring around him, staring at a ringing phone. Gray, ever the showman, also jokingly pointed to his watch during the applause — a playful nudge for the audience to keep going a little longer. They obliged.

Cate Blanchett, Julianne Moore, and director Pawel Pawlikowski were among those on their feet in the audience after the screening.

NEON’s Winning Streak Continues

Paper Tiger was actually a late addition to the official competition lineup. When Cannes artistic director Thierry Frémaux announced the initial slate in early April, he was openly still pursuing the film. “It’s the James Gray who has never stopped being himself,” Frémaux told Variety at the time, acknowledging the project was “complicated to put together” with “still some contractual issues to resolve.” By the end of April, it was in.

NEON moved quickly on North American distribution rights — not surprising, given the company has won the Palme d’Or for six consecutive years. The film was literally announced at last year’s Cannes market, and its trajectory from there to competition slot to distribution deal has been remarkably fast.

Gray’s last Cannes premiere, Armageddon Time in 2022, drew a five-minute standing ovation and a tearful speech from the director. This one felt bigger — louder, longer, more charged. Whether the jury agrees when it comes time to hand out prizes is another question entirely. But on Saturday night in that theater, with the crowd still on its feet and his star unreachable on FaceTime, James Gray looked like a man who knew he’d made something worth the noise.

The post Paper Tiger Earns Standing Ovation at Cannes Premiere appeared first on Cream.

• Matt Reeves confirmed Scarlett Johansson is joining The Batman: Part II as Gilda Dent via a haunting GIF on X
• Sebastian Stan will play Harvey Dent, the DA who becomes Two-Face, and says the film will “surprise a lot of people”
• Six returning cast members were also confirmed: Pattinson, Wright, Serkis, Farrell, Lawson, and Perez-Abraham
• The full ensemble now includes Charles Dance, Barry Keoghan, and Jeffrey Wright alongside the new additions
• The Batman: Part II is set for release on October 1, 2027, with production now underway in London

Matt Reeves is done keeping secrets. After years of near-silence on The Batman: Part II, the director has spent the last few days turning his X account into a casting announcement machine — and the biggest names he’s dropped so far are Scarlett Johansson and Sebastian Stan.

Reeves kicked things off by posting a moody GIF of Johansson from her 2013 sci-fi thriller Under the Skin, her face reflected in a car’s rearview mirror as shadows fall across her and blurred lights streak past. The caption: “Next exit, Gotham… Welcome.” It’s spare, atmospheric, and very on-brand for the filmmaker who turned Gotham City into a rain-soaked fever dream in 2022. The GIF didn’t name her character, but multiple outlets have confirmed Johansson will play Gilda Dent — wife of District Attorney Harvey Dent and a character with deep roots in Batman lore.

https://x.com/mattreevesLA/status/2054961650416189704

Stan’s welcome came shortly after, with Reeves confirming the Thunderbolts* star is in a “Gotham state of mind.” He’ll play Harvey Dent himself — the idealistic DA whose tragic transformation into the coin-flipping villain Two-Face is one of the most iconic arcs in the Batman universe. The last time we saw Dent on the big screen was Aaron Eckhart’s version in Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight back in 2008. Stan’s take promises to be something different.

Speaking to Deadline from the Cannes Film Festival, where he’s promoting his film Fjord, Stan didn’t hold back on his excitement. “It’s going to blow people away. It’s going to surprise a lot of people, I think, too,” he said. He called the film “a really ambitious movie” and a “challenge, like everything else,” adding that working with Reeves has been a long-held dream. “He’s been one of my favorites for a long, long time.”

Who Is Gilda Dent — and Why Does She Matter?

For casual fans, Gilda Dent might be a new name. For comics readers, she’s anything but. In Jeph Loeb and Tim Sale’s beloved Batman: The Long Halloween — widely considered one of the greatest Batman stories ever told — Gilda is at the center of Harvey’s world as Gotham starts to crumble around him. She watches her husband get pulled deeper into the city’s darkness, and her own role in the story takes a turn that reframes everything. Reeves has mined The Long Halloween before; the first film borrowed its serial-killer-mystery structure directly from that source material. Going deeper into Gilda’s story for the sequel feels like a natural, and potentially devastating, extension of that.

Johansson, who spent over a decade in the MCU as Black Widow, was first reported to be in final negotiations for the role back in December. She was expected to complete work on The Exorcist before heading to the Batman set. Now it’s official.

Charles Dance rounds out the Dent family as Christopher Dent, Harvey’s father — a casting detail that adds another layer of intrigue to what’s shaping up to be a very family-focused sequel.

The Full Cast Is Taking Shape

The day before the Johansson and Stan reveals, Reeves had already been busy — posting GIFs to confirm six returning cast members. Robert Pattinson is back as Bruce Wayne/Batman, Jeffrey Wright returns as Jim Gordon, Andy Serkis is back as Alfred (who took quite the beating in the first film), and Colin Farrell reprises Oz Cobb/The Penguin, fresh off his acclaimed run in HBO’s The Penguin series. Rounding out the returning players are Jayme Lawson as mayor Bella Réal and Gil Perez-Abraham as Officer Martinez — two characters whose returns will have fans of the first film quietly pumped.

Barry Keoghan is also expected to return as The Joker, though Reeves hasn’t officially posted his confirmation yet.

The full confirmed cast now stands at: Robert Pattinson, Scarlett Johansson, Sebastian Stan, Colin Farrell, Andy Serkis, Jeffrey Wright, Charles Dance, Barry Keoghan, Jayme Lawson, and Gil Perez-Abraham. The script, co-written by Reeves and Mattson Tomlin, is being kept tightly under wraps.

What We Know (and What We’re Guessing) About the Story

Plot details are locked down hard, but the casting itself tells a story. Reports suggest the film will center on Batman, Harvey Dent, and Commissioner Gordon forming an uneasy alliance to hunt a serial killer while also taking on Gotham’s entrenched crime families — a structure that draws heavily from The Long Halloween. Two-Face, Hush, a Holiday Killer, and Phantasm have all been floated as potential villains. The film’s working title, “Semper Vigilans,” has also set off speculation about the Court of Owls entering the picture.

Then there’s Pattinson, who told an interviewer earlier this year that the sequel will be a “really different type of Batman movie” — which is saying something, given how different the first one already was. “The script is so good,” he said. “Hopefully, people will be really pleasantly surprised by it.”

Reeves recently confirmed the film has a wintery setting — that snowy Batmobile photo that broke the internet a few weeks ago wasn’t just aesthetic flex — which has some corners of the fandom whispering about Mr. Freeze. Whether that pans out or not, the vibe is clear: Reeves is building something colder, darker, and more complicated than what came before.

Production is now officially underway in London. The Batman: Part II opens in theaters on October 1, 2027. And if Sebastian Stan’s confidence is any indicator, the wait is going to be worth it.

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