Scarlett Johansson Still Developing Disney's Tower of Terror Movie Post-Strikes

Following the end of the writers' and actors' strikes, Scarlett Johansson is dropping back into Tower of Terror. The Avengers star boarded the Disney theme park ride adaptation as a producer in 2021, with Toy Story 4 co-writer and director Josh Cooley penning the script and Thor: Love and Thunder filmmaker Taika Waititi attached to direct. The project has seemingly been up in the air since Johansson filed suit against the studio over Marvel's botched Black Widow streaming release, but Johansson confirmed during an appearance on TODAY that Tower of Terror remains in development at Disney with her company These Pictures. 

"Now that the writers' strike is all over with, we're finally able to dive back into polishing up this script. It's a massive, huge undertaking," Johansson said, adding she's "a huge Disney fan."

Disney first turned its theme park elevator drop ride into a made-for-TV movie starring Kirsten Dunst and Steve Guttenberg in 1997, and a reboot has been in the works since 2017. That version worked from a treatment by John August (Corpse Bride, Disney's live-action Aladdin) for producer Jim Whitaker (Pete's Dragon, Disney's Peter Pan & Wendy). Plot details remain under wraps, but The Twilight Zone: Tower of Terror ride tells the story of doomed hotel patrons who disappear under mysterious — and supernatural — circumstances when lightning strikes their elevator.

Johansson also shot down rumors she's reprising her role as Natasha Romanoff, a.k.a. Black Widow, in the Marvel Cinematic Universe after her character's death in Avengers: Endgame. The Asteroid City star is also developing at Disney what Marvel Studios head Kevin Feige referred to as a "non-Black Widow-related top-secret Marvel Studios project." 

"It is still happening. Yes," Johansson told ComicBook in June, amid the WGA writers' strike but before the SAG-AFTRA actors' strike. "It is still happening, [but] not currently because nothing is happening right now. We're all sort of in this holding pattern as we wait out the writers' strike and potentially our own guild strike, and so on and so forth." She added: "Right before the [writers'] strike, we were in the middle of developing it, and now everything is at a simmer." 

Disney's Tower of Terror has yet to set a release date.