Scarlett Johansson is taking on her first lead role in a TV drama, which is effectively Prime Video’s version of Netflix’s most popular show this year. Johansson will play the gender-swapped protagonist in a small-screen adaptation of John Katzenbach’s crime thriller Just Cause.
Her portrayal of Madi Cowart shares obvious similarities with Tessa Thompson’s role opposite Jon Bernthal in a mystery thriller released this January on Netflix. There might already be other shows like His & Hers out there, but Just Cause feels like it’s almost an exact match for the series that’s made Thompson and Bernthal streaming’s biggest stars of 2026 so far.
In addition to playing Marvel’s Black Widow and the female lead in Sofia Coppola’s Lost in Translation, Scarlett Johansson starred in several underrated indie movies in the early 2000s. She also received two Oscar nominations in 2021, for her performances in Marriage Story and Jojo Rabbit. Yet, she’s never had a live-action role of note on the small screen.
Johansson remains one of the few major movie stars not to have featured in the golden age of streaming. It appears that Just Cause signifies the moment when she finally makes the transition to television. She’ll be hoping the Prime Video release replicates at least some of the success His & Hers has given Netflix.
Just Cause Can Be Prime Video’s Answer To His & Hers
As the second most-streamed series of 2026 as of May, His & Hers is already among Netflix’s popular shows of all time, having accrued over 100 million views. The miniseries follows a detective and a news reporter who used to be husband and wife, as a murder investigation presents them with suspects they weren’t expecting.
Likewise, Prime Video’s Just Cause involves a journalist sent to investigate a murder for which the wrong person appears to have been convicted. Scarlett Johansson has been cast as this journalist, Madi Cowart who realizes things aren’t what they seem once she gets drawn into the case.
To make matters worse, the investigation then turns personal for Cowart, just as it does for the two protagonists in His & Hers. Like its Netflix counterpart, Just Cause will be a smoldering psychological thriller based around an eerie small-town setting, in which a homicide case leaves the female journalist reporting on it in perilous danger.
This TV series marks a change of direction for Scarlett Johansson. Although she’s starred in murder thrillers before, like The Black Dahlia and Under the Skin, it will be her first gritty crime drama of this kind. More importantly, unlike her previous roles, it’s being made for the small screen.
Johansson Also Starred In The Original Movie Version Of Just Cause
Ironically, Scarlett Johansson has already starred in Just Cause once before, decades before this Prime Video version came about. A movie adaptation of the novel by John Katzenbach starring Sean Connery was released in 1995. Johansson played the 11-year-old daughter of Connery’s protagonist.
This big-screen adaptation achieved middling success at the box office, but it was critically panned, and has been all but forgotten by history. As a consequence, Prime Video has seized its opportunity to put out a new TV version of the crime thriller, in which Scarlett Johansson takes on a gender-swapped iteration of Connery’s lead role.
This full-circle moment in the actor’s career is a fitting way to begin her small-screen career. Besides its female protagonist, Prime Video’s Just Cause seems to be a more faithful adaptation of Katzenbach’s book than the movie, and will hopefully make a more favorable impression with viewers.
If it does, it could be the first of many TV series fronted by Johansson. While she’ll remain an icon of the silver screen, no doubt, Just Cause will demonstrate what she can do in a different format.
- Release Date
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September 7, 2024
- Runtime
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84 minutes
- Director
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Linda-Lisa Hayter
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Clayton James
Brett Noble
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