Scarlett Stays Super
Sunday, April 28, 2013 at 1:00PM 
...superhuman that is.
It appears that after her third stint as The Black Widow for Captain America: Winter Soldier (it's not just a cameo), Scarlett Johansson isn't ready to part with the super-powered set just yet.
She'll be starring in Lucy as a woman who gains superpowers after being a mule for an experimental serum. It's a new project for director Luc Besson (who seems to be aiming for a big comeback after a quiet decade starting with Malavita this fall). This latest deal suggests she's content to stay in franchise mode for awhile longer still despite surely being one of the richest young actresses in the world what with so many spokesperson deals and big budget thesping already behind her at only 29 years of age. The size that nest egg must be by now (!) but maybe that's purposeful and her interests lie outside of acting like, say, Angelina Jolie. And since Angelina seems to have vacated the A List Action Heroine niche, someone's gotta fill it.
But for those of us who fell in love with dreamy Scarlett early on it's kind of shocking in retrospect that Action would prove to be her genre of choice. That languorous Ghost Worldly Girl With the Pearl Earring Got Lost in Translation somewhere; how does that girl have all this energy to run around kicking ass? Wouldn't she rather sleep and pout and stare forlornly off into the distance? Doesn't it make you even more curious about the upcoming sci-fi but not that kind of sci-fi drama Under the Skin. Scarjo doesn't seem to have sizeable artistic ambitions -- or she's storing them up secretly for her 30s (she's still only 28!) -- so why did she opt to work with the very artful Birth director Jonathan Glazer inbetween all the green screens?
Time will tell... and hopefully reveal that movie. Still no release date for Under the Skin and hasn't it been in post for ages? At this point it's been almost a decade since Glazer trained his hypnotic camera on Kidman in catatonic grief crisis mode at the opera.
#ticktockticktock
Luc Besson, Lucy, ScarJo, Under the Skin
Reader Comments (15)
I seriously hope "Lucy" is just a rumour like "Amazon" or having her in the lead of "Gravity" were... I started getting interested in movies by the time "Ghost World" and "Lost In Translation" came out, so I've been following her career. Personally I feel she belongs to the indie cinema field and I smiled when I checked her IMDb page and I saw she will present us with "Don Jon" and "Under the Skin", but now, "Lucy"? REALLY?
marc: I don't know. I think you still have to maintain the balance between relevance and artistry as long as you can. Would Sweet Smell of Success be half as interesting if Burt Lancaster didn't do things like Trapeze right before that or the more conventional Run Silent, Run Deep afterward? What I'm saying is: A performer who only does one kind of fare is just boring. You can still do interesting things in massive films, it just won't be as "respectable" to honour.
Scarborough better be careful because often those bubble gum paycheck
action crap flicks can become addict ing and consume your career. Just ask
Nix Cage...
Well, I must say I would like to see her re-teaming with Woody Allen again instead of doing something like "Lucy"... I like her late career choices (including her Broadway experiences) and after her great performance in "Hitchcock" and the success of "The Avengers", maybe she will get an Oscar nom for "Don Jon" (strong reviews during Sundance and SXSW) or "Under the Skin". "Captain America: The Winter Soldier" doesn't sound bad but I've my doubts about the potential quality of "Lucy"
very good in "lost in translation", good in "ghost world".
but there's something about her acting that idk... she speaks in a somewhat artificial manner.
I know she does Broadway from time to time, but overall I'm super disappointed with her.
She seems to have gained confidence after her Broadway stints. Before she rarely carried a movie (The Nanny Diaries an exception), but more seemed to be relaxed in Co-Leads or ensembles. But with Under the Skin and Lucy that seems to change. Finally!
Great post, Nathan!
You guys already know I'm insane but Scarlett has her career-best performance and character in the Avengers. And I'm past my Whedon phase, if that even came for me. She was on my ballot, if I remember correctly.
She as Black Widow is animated, involved, all of that. These kind of roles might not get her awards but to me, she might just be the kind of actress who guns for sci-fi franchise roles without seeming like a sell-out.
She does tend to thrive with auteurs, but her artistic ambitions seem to be more focused on the stage these days mixed with big budgets films.
I still think she would be amazing as Daisy in the upcoming Baz Luhrman's "The Great Gatsby"... I'm fine with Carey Mulligan, but ScarJo would rock as Daisy (and she almost got the part)
Mark: Dude, the kind of person who seeks out a Jonathan Glazer movie isn't even close to Nicolas Cage mode yet. (For the record, I think Kick-Ass showed his gift hasn't completely extinguished.)
I cannot figure her out. I like her a lot. She seems like a sweetheart. I don't want her to play passive or guarded characters because her beauty and off-screen warmness really make that feel like I am wasting something yet I have no clue if she has ever been used correctly after she broke out.
Whedon transforming Black Widow from how objectified she got in Iron Man 2 deserves some special achievement. It was genuinely exciting to see that side of her. But her as just a kickass still feels like we just see one side of her as opposed to other sides. She has an old-timey, classic feel to her. If she ever found good period roles (and not the Oscar bait kind) that took place sometime in the 20th Century (think The Man Who Wasn't There), I think maybe that could work well for her. It is no coincidence that she has favored the period, classic roles of Cat On a Hot Tin Roof and A View From The Bridge. Jake, I think she was on the Daisy short-list, but I am still upset that another Gatsby adaptation went once again with an unknown, 'to be looked at' actress as Jordan Baker. I think she would've made for a good Jordan.
marc- Gravity sounds amazing and sounds like Bullock finally picked a great post-Oscar role, so why were you happy ScarJo in that role was just rumor?
Look, I like ScarJo as much as the next person, and I'm not totally ruling out the possibility that this Glazer film will be a big moment for her. But I can't help but kvetch that Glazer's followup to Birth won't team him with another auteurial actress like Tilda Swinton or Charlotte Gainsbourg. Even Naomi Watts could have interesting chemistry in the atmospheres he builds.
I don't think she's lost any artistic ambitions. I think they're just slightly shifted. She just closed a revival of "Cat On A Hot Tin Roof" playing Maggie the Cat. So she's doing the Olivier thing for a bit: theatrical seriousness, movie fluff. (I'm not saying she's the next Olivier please don't flame me.) And you have to admit, she brings some serious gravitas to the movie fluff. Black Widow wouldn't be the same without her.