Scarlett Johansson says she has told Hollywood studios to scrap movies they offered her, a blunt response she uses when she cannot see who would buy a ticket. The two-time Oscar nominee made the comments to the Los Angeles Times while promoting “Paper Tiger,” the crime drama she made with director James Gray.
She described a simple test for any project: whether an audience exists for it. “I’m not making a movie just for me,” she said. When the answer is no, she tells the executives who sent the script. “I don’t know who you’re making this for,” she recalled saying, and she called some of those projects irresponsible to make. Johansson declined to name the offending films or the studios behind them.
The remarks carry weight because she is one of the few actors who moves easily between franchise work and smaller productions. She spent years as Black Widow in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and her last major studio release was 2025’s “Jurassic World Rebirth.” This year she shot two more big-budget films back to back, including Universal and Blumhouse’s “The Exorcist: Martyrs.” Her next project is “Scapegoat,” from “Midsommar” director Ari Aster.
“Paper Tiger” sits at the other end of her schedule. Neon bought the film shortly before its world premiere at the Cannes Film Festival earlier this year. Johansson plays Hester Pearl, a Queens mother who tries to give her two sons more options than she had, while hiding a serious medical diagnosis. The R-rated film opens in select theaters Friday and expands nationwide Nov. 20. Johansson has said she learned during preproduction how much of Hester’s story drew on Gray’s own family.
She has spoken before about the limits of the offers that came her way. After “Lost in Translation” in 2003, she told Vanity Fair, nearly every role on the table cast her as a girlfriend, an other woman or a sex object. In the Times interview she recalled a stretch when scripts about Marilyn Monroe kept arriving. Her comments land as industry insiders question whether larger budgets have delivered better movies. Johansson’s answer is to ask who the film is for before she signs.
