Producer Scarlett Johansson on Fly Me to the Moon: “This Character Was So Great, I Have to Do It!”

Fly Me to the Moon represents Scarlett Johansson’s third time executive producing a feature film. The veteran actress first dipped into producing when she worked on a 2011 documentary called The Whale alongside Ryan Reynolds. One decade later, Johansson returned to executive producing in her Marvel Cinematic Universe swan song Black Widow. While her EP work on The Whale appeared to be a one-off at the time, Black Widow seems to have officially ushered producing into Johansson’s career. Johansson has since launched her own production company, These Pictures, which collectively materialized the spark that would become Fly Me to the Moon.

Johansson fleshed out the concept of a rom-com set on the backdrop of the space race with a conspiratorial twist, eventually handing the reins to screenwriter Rose Gilroy. 

“The tone of the script was so great when I read it. I enjoyed reading it so much,” Johansson told ComicBook. “Rose Gilroy wrote the script and she is an amazing writer. She comes from an incredible family of amazing creatives and writers.”

Gilroy crafted the original character of Kelly Jones to spearhead the story. A Manhattanite marketing maestro, Kelly is tasked with “selling” the moon to the American people at a time when interest in pursuing the cosmos is declining. This particularly clashes with Cole Davis (Channing Tatum), a former Navy pilot who now works as NASA’s launch director, as he takes issue with the idea of weaving branding into a mission he sees as already packed with plenty of reason to rally.

Kelly’s role takes a sharp turn when shadowy government figure Moe Berkus (Woody Harrelson) approaches her to simultaneously coordinate the filming of a faked moon landing in order to provide the government with backup footage in case the legitimate Apollo 11 mission fails.

Fly Me to the Moon was originally intended to solely exist as a producing project for Johansson, but Gilroy’s screenplay made her fall in love with the character of Kelly and prompted her to maximize her involvement to the fullest.

“I was not expecting the tone to be so original,” Johansson continued. “It just had everything in it. This character was so great that I was like, ‘I can’t let somebody else play her.’ I tried to think of who we would cast for this part, and I was like, ‘I have to do it!’”

From here, Johansson’s producing future is packed. She is set to star and produce Prime Video’s Just Cause limited series and will produce a “top secret” Marvel Studios project, which she confirmed to ComicBook in June 2023.

Fly Me to the Moon soars into theaters on Friday, July 12th.