Neon Sets ‘Paper Tiger’ Awards Categories, Plans First Real Push for a James Gray Film (Exclusive)

Paper Tiger , James Gray ’s crime-thriller starring Miles Teller , Adam Driver and Scarlett Johansson , which premiered to strong notices at May’s Cannes Film Festival — including a rave from The Hollywood Reporter — and is set to open the New York Film Festival on Friday night, will be given a full-fledged awards push this fall by its U.S. and U.K. distributor Neon , The Hollywood Reporter can exclusively report.

THR can confirm that as part of the campaign, Neon will promote Teller for best actor, Driver for best supporting actor and Johansson for best supporting actress, ending months of speculation about where the trio of A-listers would wind up. Related Stories Movies Inside NYFF's Splashy Lineup: Landing 'Artificial,' Weighing a Secret Screening and Opening on the "Miraculous" 'Paper Tiger' (Exclusive) Movies Korean Director Na Hong-jin on the Meaning Behind 'Hope' and His Sequel Plans: "Don't Be Surprised if He Crosses Over to the North"

Paper Tiger , like many of Gray’s films, is semi-autobiographical. It tells the story of how a blue-collar family man (Driver) is enticed by his more ambitious brother (Driver) into an ill-advised business enterprise that ends up landing the two of them, as well as the man’s wife (Johansson) and children, in the crosshairs of the Russian mafia.

Made on a $15 million budget cobbled together from a wide variety of sources (it has 24 executive producers listed in its credits), Paper Tiger is the sort of mid-range budget, adult-targeted American movie that almost never gets made anymore. Since its debut in Cannes, enthusiasm for it has been cultivated at the Locarno Film Festival, where Gray collected a special achievement award; and at numerous private screenings in Los Angeles, Manhattan and the Hamptons, which have attracted dozens of Academy members.

Paper Tiger ‘s entire principal cast and all of its department heads will join Gray at its big Alice Tully Hall premiere on Friday night, and then on Saturday afternoon Gray will participate in a Walter Reade Theater conversation about the film moderated by a fellow chronicler of New York and one of his vocal admirers, Martin Scorsese.

After that, the film will play at a host of fall film festivals — among them Mill Valley, Hamptons, London, Newport Beach, Chicago, Virginia and Savannah, with Gray set to collect directing honors at Mill Valley, Virginia and Savannah — en route to its U.S. theatrical release in select theaters on Nov. 13 and wider release on Nov. 20.

Will it all be enough to finally land Gray — a longtime darling of critics and Cannes, but never a nominee of the Academy — and/or his film in the Oscar race?