In May of 2021, I read the screenplay for the film Ghosted. As a starving writer, I wear all kinds of hats and one of my side hustles is working as a reader for a production company in Los Angeles that has almost a billion dollars of box office on its slate.
The job a of a reader differs based on where you work, if you’re in the studio system or at an agency, and whether or not you’re actually writing ‘coverage.’ Coverage is a general overview of the material, strengths and weaknesses and a suggestion about whether or not the material warrants being passed along to the next tier of person/reader/executive in the hierarchy of most Hollywood entities. Often times, assistants at agencies will double as trusted readers.
In the old days, you’d have a daunting stack of hard-copied scripts. In the really old days they’d be clasped together with brass brads, then they had heat-sealed tape bindings. In many cases, your read order would be determined by the thickness of the script itself. You’d be lying in bed next to a girlfriend or boyfriend who (unless they were also in the industry) didn’t understand why you never had a second of time off. You’d read until you fell asleep every night and then do it all over again the next night, and the next, and the next. Your knowledge of story and specific writers and specific material was the currency you traded on in every meeting you attended and you could never watch every film and read every script, but that never stopped any of us from trying.
These days, you just have a list of emails with little loglines or breakdowns and you simply click away.
I really enjoyed Ghosted, the screenplay, written at the time by Rhett Reese & Paul Wernick. IMDB now lists two additional writers, Paul McKenna and Eric Sommers. Unless you have inside information, you never know why the additional writers are brought in. Reese and Wernick both have big-P producer credits, so it’s not likely that they fucked up or somehow couldn’t get the script to a place it needed to be. More often they bring in a writer (or two, in this case) to either punch up the jokes or streamline the action or to do a few weeks of a cleanup pass on it.
Here was the logline I received in the initial email:
Logline: In the vein of ROMANCING THE STONE, this love story for the ages is set against the backdrop of a globetrotting action adventure. Herein, a case of mistaken identity takes our couple down a rabbit hole of gunfire, fisticuffs, car chases, and more, all from the minds of the incisive writers of DEADPOOL and ZOMBIELAND.
Despite the weird-ass choice of the word “herein”, I ended up really enjoying the script, which I kicked up the ladder with high marks. At the time, I knew Chris Evans was attached and I hadn’t seen enough of a comedy role for him so my reservations were all around whether or not he had the comedy chops to consistently nail what I thought were expertly crafted jokes. Also, the female lead, which is a fun, exciting role, was yet to be cast.
But I loved the twist in gender roles, some heady action sequences and in general, solidly crafted comedy.
In the end, our company passed on the project, but I had a friend on our staff who just plain couldn’t stand the script. She just hated it and said it was a bomb waiting to happen.
“You spelled hit wrong,” I said.
“Hit? You’re out of your fucking mind!” My friend wrote back.
So now that the final moment is here, I’m anxiously waiting to see who was right. Me as the fan of the project, or my dear friend, who has no soul, probably a double digit IQ, and smells funny.
Only time will tell. Here’s the trailer for the upcoming release of Ghosted.
Ghosted will premiere on Apple TV+ on April 21, 2023.
