Scarlett Johansson & Chris Evans Lead Space Race Film 'Project Artemis'

On Sunday, Apple’s “CODA” became the first Oscar-nominated film from a streaming service to earn a Best Picture statue which certainly has placed the studio as a place for creatives to bring projects, arthouse and commercial alike, to get made. The streamer has found another big film project to spend a heap of money on after paying a whopping $200 million for Matthew Vaughn’s spy pic “Argylle” starring Henry Cavill.

Deadline reports Apple has landed a new package deal valued at $100M+ with “Project Artemis,” a new space race film that will be directed by Jason Bateman (“Ozark”). It also has high-profile Marvel Studios actors attached to star as Scarlett Johansson and Chris Evans set for unnamed lead roles. Bateman won a Best Directing Emmy for his work on “Ozark,” upsetting the field in 2019, and as anyone who watches that show knows, he’s turned into a terrific filmmaker.

The pair of actors previously worked together on multiple MCU films such as “The Avengers,” “Captain America: The Winter Soldier,” “Avengers: Age of Ultron,” “Captain America: Civil War,” “Avengers: Infinity War,” and “Avengers: Endgame.” Not to mention studio comedies such as “The Nanny Diaries” and “The Perfect Score.”

They almost reunited on another Apple film, “Ghosted,” before Johansson exited and was replaced by Ana de Armas. Evans and Armas had recently worked together don’t the Netflix spy film “The Gray Man” helmed by The Russo Brothers, said to be the most expensive original at the streamer.

“Project Artemis” has a script penned by Rose Gilroy, the daughter of writer/director Dan Gilroy and actress René Russo. Details are scarce, though, and we’ll have to wait for concrete plot information.

Upcoming projects from Evans include Pixar’s new sci-fi pic “Lightyear,” as the actor voices the iconic character that was first introduced in “Toy Story” and the aforementioned actioner “The Gray Man.”