Scarlett stars in this year’s Super Bowl commercial for Ritz alongside Jon Hamm and Bowen Yang.

THE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER – Mike Flanagan, who previously tackled Stephen King adaptations ‘Gerald’s Game’ and ‘Doctor Sleep,’ is writing and will direct the feature film.
Scarlett Johansson will star in Mike Flanagan’s “fresh, bold” take on The Exorcist.

Blumhouse and Universal are behind the latest attempt to revive the horror franchise, which follows the companies’ ill-fated effort to launch a franchise with 2023’s The Exorcist: Believer.

Flanagan wrote the script and is directing and producing the new feature that is not a remake nor a sequel but set in the Exorcist “universe,” whatever that entails.

The original Exorcist, based on the novel by William Peter Blatty and directed by William Friedkin, focused on the demonic possession of a young girl and the priests that try to save her. The film was nominated for 10 Oscars. The various follow-ups mostly featured stories centered on the girl (now grown-up), the back stories of the priests or other demonic cases detectives from the first movie investigated.

“The Exorcist is one of the reasons I became a filmmaker, and it is an honor to have the chance to try something fresh, bold and terrifying within its universe,” is how Flanagan described the project when his involvement was announced in May 2024.

At the time, David Robinson, chairman and CEO of Exorcist rights holder Morgan Creek, said, “I think his vision for this franchise is going to stun audiences worldwide.”

Details on the take are being kept strapped to the bed.

Flanagan, who is known for directing Stephen King adaptations such as Doctor Sleep and Gerald’s Game as well as creating TV shows such as Midnight Mass and The Haunting of Hill House, is producing via his Red Room Pictures banner. David Robinson is producing for Morgan Creek Entertainment while Jason Blum and Ryan Turek serve as producer and executive producer respectively for Blumhouse.

Johansson last starred in Universal’s Jurassic World: Rebirth, which grossed over $868 million worldwide and proved that the studio’s long-standing dino movie series still had the chomps when it came to attracting audiences.

If you missed it, watch the entire interview of Scarlett and June Squibb talking about Eleanor the Great with Kelly Clarkson.

PEOPLE – The pair play mother-daughter again in Scott Thomas’ moving directorial debut, ‘My Mother’s Wedding’
Kristin Scott Thomas has an onscreen family bond with Scarlett Johansson.

Back in 1998, when Johansson was just 13 years old, the pair played a mother-daughter duo in Robert Redford’s acclaimed drama The Horse Whisperer. Now, 27 years later, the Marvel star is back playing Scott Thomas’ onscreen daughter for a second time in My Mother’s Wedding.

The film marks the directorial debut from The English Patient Oscar nominee. As she tells PEOPLE, Johansson was her top pick for the role of a Royal Navy captain who reunites with her two sisters (played by Sienna Miller and Emily Beecham) for the third wedding of their twice widowed mother (Scott Thomas).

“She’s an extraordinary actress,” Scott Thomas, 65, says of Johansson, 40. “I was very, very happy to find her again.”

The two hadn’t kept in touch over the years, Scott Thomas says, save for bumping into each other “from time to time.”

“It’s very easy to lose touch when you are a film actor because you go from one project to the next,” she explains. “You swear to a never-ending friendship and then gradually something else distracts you.”

My Mother’s Wedding is an especially personal project for Scott Thomas, who co-wrote the film with her husband John Micklethwait. Similar to Johansson’s character, Scott Thomas herself suffered major tragedies in her childhood: at 5 years old she lost her father, and when she was 12, her stepfather died — both were Royal Navy pilots who were killed in service.

Scott Thomas says she “talked a lot” about her personal story with her three onscreen daughters to help inform their performances. “When you are playing family, you sort of become family,” she says.

Johansson especially had an “immediate” reaction to the film’s screenplay, Scott Thomas remembers.

“I literally gave it to her, and 24 hours later she said yes because she was very moved by the story.”

Over the weekend, it was announced that Scarlett’s directorial debut Eleanor the Great starring June Squibb and Erin Kellyman will be released theatrically nationwide in the US and Canada on September 26, 2025. Today, it was announced that the film will have it’s North American premiere at the 2025 Toronto International Film Festival earlier in the month.

The film follows Eleanor Morgenstein (June Squibb), who is trying to rebuild her life after the death of her best friend. As a result, she moves back to New York City after living in Florida for decades.

THE WRAP – Her lead project career gross of $14.8 billion passes the totals of fellow Marvel alums Robert Downey Jr. and Samuel L. Jackson
Four years after exiting the Marvel Cinematic Universe with “Black Widow,” Scarlett Johansson has now set a new record as the global box office’s highest grossing lead actor before inflation adjustment, passing fellow MCU stars Samuel L. Jackson and Robert Downey Jr. And it is all thanks to “Jurassic World: Rebirth.”

In the new film, Johannson takes over from Chris Pratt as the lead star of the dinosaur franchise, playing ex-military operative Zora Bennett in a mission to one of the few remaining islands where dinosaurs still live following the events of the “Jurassic World” trilogy. In its first six days in theaters worldwide, the film has earned a $318 million global launch, second only to the Chinese animated film “Ne Zha 2” among all 2025 releases.

According to data from The Numbers, that start gives Johansson a lifetime career box office gross of $14.8 billion in films where she plays a lead role or a lead ensemble role. More than $8.7 billion of that total comes from the four “Avengers” films and “Captain America: Civil War,” in which she played Natasha Romanov, a.k.a. Black Widow.

Other lead ensemble roles that count towards that total include her MCU debut film, “Iron Man 2,” and the two animated “Sing” films, in which she voiced the rock-loving porcupine Ash.

Of the top five highest grossing lead actors on The Numbers’ list, the only one that has not appeared in a Marvel film is Tom Hanks, with the others being Downey Jr. (Tony Stark/Iron Man), Jackson (Nick Fury) and Chris Pratt (Peter Quill/Star-Lord). Jackson previously held the record with $14.6 billion, with Pixar’s two “Incredibles” films being counted by the site as a lead ensemble role.

Downey Jr., the MCU’s founding father, has $14.2 billion in leading roles in The Numbers’ books, with approximately $11.8 billion coming from his nine Marvel movies. His Best Supporting Actor Oscar winning turn in the $976 million “Oppenheimer,” as the name of that award would suggest, is not included in that count.

Depending on whether one counts Doctor Doom as a lead ensemble role, Downey Jr. will have a chance to take the box office crown back from Johansson in December 2026 when “Avengers: Doomsday” hits theaters … assuming of course that the film and/or its 2027 follow-up “Avengers: Secret Wars” doesn’t use multiversal loopholes to bring Black Widow back from the dead despite Johansson’s assertions in multiple interviews that her time in the MCU has ended.

DEADLINE – With her latest blockbuster franchise, Scarlett Johansson had some support from her predecessor.

The 2x Oscar nominee revealed that Jurassic World alum Bryce Dallas Howard sent her a “whole long email” welcoming her to the franchise after she was cast in Jurassic World Rebirth, now in theaters.

“When I first got cast, Bryce Dallas Howard reached out to me and was so excited,” Johansson told People. “She wrote me a whole long email about her experience and how wonderful the fans were and how that was part of the excitement, joining the Jurassic family and having these fans for life.”

Johansson debuts in Jurassic World Rebirth as covert ops expert Zora Bennett, starring alongside Jonathan Bailey and Mahershala Ali.

Howard played Claire Dearing, the operations manager of the titular dinosaur theme park in Jurassic World (2015), Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom (2018) and Jurassic World Dominion (2022).Last month, Howard emphasized her excitement for the upcoming seventh installment in the franchise, which began with 1993’s Jurassic Park, noting she’d “be back in a heartbeat” if asked to reprise her role.

“For myself as a fan, I am so excited for Jurassic World Rebirth. I’m going to be there in the theater opening day, and they have an amazing cast,” Howard told ScreenRant. “I mean, Mahershala Ali, Scarlett Johansson, Jonathan Bailey. It’s going to be absolutely fantastic. I’m excited. And then maybe in 20 years or something like that, if they ever asked, of course, I would be back in a heartbeat.”