Scarlett Johansson didn’t have a great time finding financing for her feature directorial debut “Eleanor the Great.” The indie drama, which will premiere at the Cannes Film Festival in the Un Certain Regard section, stars June Squibb as a grieving 94-year-old who relocates from Florida to New York City, where she befriends a young journalism student (Erin Kellyman). MCU alum and “Jurassic World: Rebirth” star Johansson told THR that the film took “forever to get made” in part because indies are so difficult to fund.
“It would be easier to make something that was the sequel of a $180 million movie or a genre movie that was subpar,” Johansson said. “To get much, much, much less money for an independent film with an original story that has a lead actor who was 94 was very, very, very challenging.”
Johansson added that there was a “humongous scramble” to even film in New York. “Every day the movie fell apart in 400 different ways,” she said. “It once looked like we were going to be able to get the majority of our money from an independent financing company and then right down to the wire, in order for them to make it, we would’ve had to completely dismantle the entire plot device that was driving the narrative engine of the film. It was crazy. At that point, everything just fell apart.”
It wasn’t until Sony Pictures Classics got on board that “Eleanor the Great” had enough cash to actually, well, be great.
“They really got [‘Eleanor’], and they came in and saved the day so that we could make our start date,” Johansson said of the studio. “I am so grateful that there are companies out there that are still making original ideas and putting faith in first time directors.”
Johansson will next act in Wes Anderson’s “The Phoenician Scheme,” which also is debuting at Cannes. “Whatever I work on next, regardless of the size or the genre, I would be looking for those same kinds of deep characters and it would be important for me to try to find performance-driven stories,” she said.
