While there had been some chatter of James Gray‘s next feature film, “Paper Tiger,” being a potential addition to the lineup of the Cannes Film Festival, it’s now official that the pic starring Adam Driver, Scarlett Johansson, and Miles Teller is going to be in the race for the Palme d’Or.
That exciting lineup update comes to us from Variety, which also added that distributor NEON has nabbed the North American rights to Gray’s crime thriller ahead of its debut at Cannes next month. Cannes Chief Thierry Frémaux had ruled out “The Odyssey” and “Digger” being ready for the festival, but kept the door open for “Paper Tiger.”
Teller and Driver are set to play brothers trying to achieve the American dream, “entangled in a scheme that turns out to be too good to be true. 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, of course, is no stranger to screening his films at Cannes, having done that previously with five other titles such as “Armageddon Time,” “The Immigrant,” “Two Lovers,” “We Own the Night,” and “The Yards” ( the acclaimed filmmaker also served on the Cannes jury in 2009).
At one point, Anne Hathaway and Jeremy Strong had been previously attached for lead roles in “Paper Tiger” alongside Driver before being recast with Johansson and Teller. Many should remember that Driver and Johansson worked together on Noah Baumbach‘s “Marriage Story,” which earned the two Oscar nominations for their compelling performances in the divorce drama.
You can check out the other films that are part of the Cannes Film Festival lineup right here.
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