Hollywood is starving for new movie stars.
The 2010s brought with it the absolute domination of IP and franchises over all else, but the studios still yearn for the days when one name could get millions of people to the cinema without a second thought.
The arrival of the last Mission: Impossible movie, Final Reckoning, brought with it yet another round of discourse over whether or not Tom Cruise was The Last Movie Star.
Who were the undisputed A-List icons who could follow in his footsteps and headline blockbusters that would delight audiences and accrue immense profits? Who could replace the genre’s most iconic face and performer of terrifying stunts?
Certainly, many have tried to replicate the magic over the past 15 or so years (most of them tall hunky white guys named Chris). Glen Powell is eager to claim the crown. Cruise himself put forward Sinners star Michael B. Jordan as a contender. The true heir, however, has been proving herself as such for most of her life and has the box office receipts to prove it.
Now headlining the latest Jurassic World movie, Rebirth, Scarlett Johansson is here to remind us that she is a true movie star.
The multi-award-winning actress has been in the business since she was a child, earning raves in films like The Horse Whisperer and Ghost World, before graduating to worldwide acclaim before she was even old enough to drink.
For close to two decades now, she’s modelled herself into both a critic’s favorite and a money-making powerhouse. She’s the second highest-grossing leading actor of all-time and the highest-grossing woman, well ahead of Cruise as well as Bradley Cooper and Chrises Evans, Pratt, and Hemsworth. Even accounting for all roles, she’s comfortably in the top ten with well over $15.4 billion to her name. Add to that two Oscar nominations, a Tony, an honorary César, seven stints hosting Saturday Night Live, and a Time Magazine honor as one of the most influential people in the world. Ethan Hunt who?
In terms of pure savviness, Johansson is second to none. She has a sharp eye for projects and a distinct lack of snobbery. Yes, she’s got those prestige indie titles, like her work with Wes Anderson, but she’s also happy to do kids movies like Sing or Transformers One. She does comedies (Rough Night), rom-coms (Fly Me To the Moon), biopics (Hitchcock), period pieces (Hail, Caesar!)… oh, and there’s also the highest-grossing film franchise of all time.
Being Black Widow, one of the first generation Avengers, has certainly helped to keep her in the public eye over the years. She came to the franchise already a star and one could argue that she didn’t need the Marvel boost since she had a highly enviable filmography that included works with Sofia Coppola, Michael Bay, and SpongeBob SquarePants. But the MCU put her front and center as an action star and one of the few women in such a position at that time.
As Natasha Romanoff, she was the girl with a gun in the boys club that featured robot suits, genetic engineering, and literal gods. She outsmarted Loki, maced goons, and provided a much-needed emotional grounding amid the gymnastics and explosions. It’s a testament to Johansson’s commitment to the character that she was able to rise above some of the more sexist writing she was saddled with (hello, Avengers: Age of Ultron and that Hulk boob fall scene.)
A lot of MCU actors seemed to struggle to find ways to use their new star power, but Johansson, by that point a veteran of film, made fascinating choices.
2014’s Lucy, directed by Luc Besson, proved that she could headline an action movie without a superhero name in the title (a pointed move from her given that Marvel took way too long to greenlight a Black Widow due to CEO sexism.) Marriage Story gave her one of her greatest roles as a woman dealing with the traumatic fallout of a divorce. In Under the Skin, she disguised herself to drive around Glasgow in a white van and pick up strangers for this unnerving sci-fi that deliberately played around with Johansson’s image as a sex symbol.
Not every movie was a major hit or even a wise decision, as the total red flag that was the Ghost in the Shell adaptation proves, but the strategy behind each choice is evident. It’s about building a sturdy foundation of stardom with four quadrant appeal: be a financial hit, win awards, be known to people of all ages, and have the power to do whatever the hell you want. She’s putting her range to good use, not being constricted by the narrow boundaries of the A-List. ScarJo could and would do Top Gun: Maverick, but Tom Cruise couldn’t do Under the Skin.
But box office and reviews only tell half the story when it comes to Hollywood power. What is a greater sign of your strength and nerve than suing the hell out of Disney?
Johansson took on the House of Mouse, alleging breach of contract over their decision to release Black Widow simultaneously in cinemas and on Disney+. The case was settled and Johansson reportedly walked away with $40 million. She could have risked killing her lucrative relationship with the corporate giant by doing this, but she came out of it stronger, with plans to keep working with Disney (including a Tower of Terror movie.)
She also called out Sam Altman of OpenAI when he launched a chat bot with a voice that was undeniably intended to invoke comparisons with Johansson’s. This came after she declined the company’s offer to formally work with them on the project, taking inspiration from her role in Spike Jonze’s AI romance Her. It was symbolic of a major problem Johansson’s faced throughout her career: leering sexism and objectification.
In a 2022 interview with the Armchair Expert podcast, she talked about how she was “kind of pigeonholed into this weird hypersexualized thing” for much of her career. It’s not tough to find interviews or profiles where people talk about her as if she’s a piece of meat. In one infamous red carpet interview, she was groped. Even as she became one of the biggest stars on the planet, a tech bro felt entitled to steal her voice. But Johansson didn’t take that insult lying down. She worked too hard for that, and Altman paused the project.
Jurassic World Rebirth will surely make all of the money and keep Johansson’s star power sturdy. Up next, she will wield her clout in a whole new way by releasing her directorial debut, Eleanor the Great, which premiered at Cannes and has already been cued up for an Oscar campaign for its lead actress, June Squibb.
Johansson shared with The Hollywood Reporter that her dream co-star was Tom Cruise, and Cruise in return told Entertainment Tonight that he would love to work with her. What better way to truly pass the gauntlet than with a ScarJo-Cruise team-up?
