Scarlett Johansson Doesn’t Pick Up FaceTime Call From James Gray During 7-Minute Cannes Standing Ovation for ‘Paper Tiger’

“Paper Tiger” director James Gray tried to call Scarlett Johansson on his cellphone so she could share in the 7-minute standing ovation at the Cannes premiere of “Paper Tiger” on Saturday. But the star didn’t pick up his FaceTime.

Johansson couldn’t be on hand at the South of France because she is filming “The Exorcist” reboot. But her co-stars Miles Teller and Adam Driver, who play brothers who run afoul of the Russian mob in the tragic crime thriller, flanked a boisterous Gray.

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Gray’s first film since 2022’s “Armageddon Time,” “Paper Tiger” has already been picked up for North American distribution by Neon, which has won the Palme d’Or the past six years running. The film follows two brothers as they try to achieve the American dream, only to become “entangled in a scheme that turns out to be too good to be true,” according to its official synopsis. “As they try to navigate their way through an ever-more dangerous world of corruption and violence, they find themselves and their family brutally terrorized by the Russian ‘Mafiya.’ Their bond begins to fray, and betrayal — once utterly unthinkable — now becomes all too possible.”

Gray is a Cannes mainstay, with “Paper Tiger” being his sixth film to premiere on the Croisette following “Armageddon Time,” “The Immigrant,” “Two Lovers,” “We Own the Night” and “The Yards.” He was also part of the competition jury in 2019, when Isabelle Huppert served as president.

When the initial Cannes lineup was announced in early April, artistic director Thierry Fremaux did not hold back the fact that he was still courting “Paper Tiger” for competition. “It’s the James Gray who has never stopped being himself,” Frémaux told Variety, noting the project was “complicated to put together” and that there were “still some contractual issues to resolve.” By the end of April, the film was officially added to the competition.