Scarlett Johansson is no stranger to the world of s0-called “elevated” horror. After all, her 2013 thriller Under The Skin helped set the template for the sort of prestige, ambiguity-heavy spook-em-ups that have become the bread-and-butter of certain studios in recent years—most notably the tasteful shockmasters operating over at A24. (Which handled, not coincidentally, the North American distribution for Jonathan Glazer’s film.) Now Johansson is teaming up with said studio for a new film, one that will apparently once again cast her as an otherworldly beauty whose surface appearance hides a potentially inhuman heart.
Specifically, Variety reports that Johansson—fresh off the filming of the long-delayed Black Widow movie—has signed on to star in Bride, from Gloria Bell and A Fantastic Woman director Sebastián Lelio. Co-produced by Apple, the film sounds like an updated riff on a sort of Frankenstein story, with Johansson playing “a woman created to be an ideal wife” for a man she ends up rejecting, possibly because guys who have to spend a fortune building their own Scarlett Johanssons don’t tend to have the sturdiest of dating skills. She’s then labeled as a monster by society and forced to go on the run, where she apparently “finds her true identity, her surprising power and the strength to remake herself as her own creation. (Fingers crossed that said true identity will finally let Johansson fulfill her long-held dream of getting to play a tree.)
Johansson is set to produce the film, with Lelio writing the script, alongside Orange Is The New Black’s Lauren Schuker Blum and Rebecca Angelo.