Ghosted Director Explains the Marvelous Cameos and How They Happened
29[Editor's Note: This article contains MAJOR spoilers for Ghosted]
Did you catch the assembly of cameos in the new romantic action comedy, Ghosted? Some fans may have caught star Chris Evans’ tease before the movie’s Apple TV+ premiere, but whether you expected the Marvel alums or not, their appearances in the movie were a fun treat, and Collider’s Steve Weintraub had the opportunity to speak with the director, Dexter Fletcher, about how they were able to get these A-listers to join their previous co-star on set.
Ghosted starts out like many a rom-com with a serendipitous meet-cute, where recently-heartbroken Cole (Evans) meets Ana de Armas’ Sadie. Their interaction is a bit prickly to start off, but their undeniable tension leads to a magical first date. When Cole gets seemingly ghosted by Sadie after sending her numerous texts, he convinces himself that it must be a mistake and flies to London to pursue her. The movie takes a delightfully wacky turn when Cole is mistaken for a secret agent and gets ambushed by spies. Sadie, the actual special agent, is tasked with rescuing him, and the two are forced to stick together in order to escape.
Which Marvel Characters Are in Ghosted?
Now that Cole and Sadie are on the run, skilled bounty hunters are fighting to be the ones claiming the rewards. These hunters are played by The Falcon and the Winter Soldier’s Anthony Mackie and Sebastian Stan, and John Cho (Searching), who Fletcher says is someone he "always admired and wanted to work with." He went on to explain to Weintraub that the hilariously brief Marvel cameos were always in the script, and not just as fluff, but to show “the world they're in is dangerous. There's a very real threat, and they are now hunted.” Fletcher “just happened to have these incredible actors who were willing,” when Evans made a phone call, and he adds, “I just think it speaks to their friendship.” Still, no matter how strong the MCU bond is, it seems night shoots are where the line is drawn because according to the director:
"When Chris picks up the phone with Mackie and goes, “Get yourself down here,” Mackie turns up and says, “Oh man, if I had known it was at nighttime, I would have said no!”
Deadpool Gets Ghosted
Another familiar face in Ghosted, who’s recently become an official MCU star himself, is Ryan Reynolds. Fletcher explained that “[they] were always trying to get Ryan to come in. He was going to play one of the bounty hunters, in fact,” but due to prior obligations, he was unable to make it. Still, Reynolds was committed to being in the movie, and with a couple of minor pivots in the script he makes a surprise appearance near the end that Fletcher says he ultimately had to cut back to serve the story, adding, “the outtakes on that are really– I could have made that scene much, much longer. I really had to make a really brutal decision.”
So how did he get Deadpool? Fletcher says:
So on the day that he came, I went in the trailer just to chat about the scene and what the idea was… and I was like, “It's so great you're doing it.” He was like, “Look, when I needed Evans [for Free Guy] I picked up the phone, I didn't really know him that well then, and I was like, ‘Will you come and do it?’ He was there the next day.”
And [Reynolds] said, “So I'm all in. When Chris picks up the phone, I'm there.” ...We're all trying to do the best we can, we want to make good films, we want to make films that people enjoy and want to see, and will hopefully watch again. I think the industry is actually quite small, and there's no givens, there's no guarantees. It's hard to make something good, and if everyone can contribute to that…Generally, people are nice, and Ryan Reynolds is a nice guy, he's a good guy. So him and Chris are now playing this tennis game of, “Well, you owe me and I owe you, and you owe me,” and long may it continue, I say.
With a cast list like this and action sequences like the ones in Ghosted, you'd think filming would be a lengthy process, but Fletcher says it was "one night for each of them... they came in, did it, and went, “Hey, we love you guys. Good luck! Looks great, bye!” And off they went."
Ghosted is now streaming on Apple TV+.
#Ghosted #dexterfletcher #ryanreynolds
For interviews, movie reviews, and more visit https://collider.com
FOLLOW US ON SOCIAL
https://twitter.com/collider
https://instagram.com/collider
https://facebook.com/collider