Ghosted director Dexter Fletcher says the streaming data didn’t support his original vision
Dexter Fletcher says that he cut Ghosted's opening after Apple TV+ told him "if something doesn’t happen in the first 30 seconds...people will just turn off"
Aux News Ghosted
Martin Scorsese’s adventures in streaming aside, take it from Ghosted director Dexter Fletcher: streamers want movies that are short, sweet, and right to the point, whether that meshes with a filmmaker’s creative vision or not.
“You can’t make a film for streaming in the same way you make a theatrical. You can’t,” Fletcher explains during an appearance on Alex Zane’s “A Trip To The Movies” podcast. “There’s different metrics and there’s a different approach.”
According to the director, part of that “approach” was cutting the film in a way that drew audiences in immediately, which he says meant trimming down what Apple TV+ saw as fat. Ghosted tells the story of mild-mannered Cole (Chris Evans) who falls for Sadie (Ana de Armas) without realizing she’s a secret agent. Naturally, international hijinks ensue.
The film’s opening sequence—which Fletcher says was inspired by 1978's Foul Play, starring Chevy Chase and Goldie Hawn—was initially a long shot of Sadie driving in the mountains, until the streamer shut it down. Fletcher says Apple TV+’s reasoning came down to data that demonstrates that when viewers watch a film on streaming, if “something doesn’t happen in the first 30 seconds.. people will just turn off.” Although he personally thought the roughly three-minute sequence was “great,” Fletcher ultimately agreed to make the “compromise.”
According to Fletcher, that approach to cuts highlights one of the biggest differences between crafting a film for a theatrical release versus a streaming release. “What is a cinematic experience for me as a filmmaker…becomes, okay, [I’ve] got to adjust to retain my audience, you know.” (Apropos of, well, something, the opening sequence that did make the final cut features some serious air time for Apple’s CarPlay feature.)
13 Comments
But streaming was supposed to give creators so much more freedom.
These are not mutually exclusive concepts. Creators have a lot more freedom now because there are so many more possible outlets that can distribute their work. But “more freedom” does not mean “unlimited freedom in every sense.”
I think modern creators do have a lot more freedom than ever — certainly more than when there were only 3 networks on television (ABC, NBC, and CBS) because it’s easier to find a home for a project than ever. But that doesn’t mean they can craft everything optimally to their tastes if they want to work with a distributor.And in the end, directors can still take their work directly to Youtube or stream from their own sites if they don’t want editorial interference from a distributor like Apple TV+. So there is definitely more choice out there than ever before.
You make a good point, but by no means was I suggesting that streaming ever promised “unlimited” freedom. My perspective is, for decades a theatrically-released film might have been test-screened, but most creative decisions were made purposefully by a small group of individuals. A studio might give notes or demand changes, but ultimately they were still accountable for that. Hollywood history is littered with stories about how classic scenes almost didn’t make it into the film because some clueless studio executive didn’t understand it. And now here’s a studio telling a director to change something because data “demonstrates that when viewers watch a film on streaming, if ‘something doesn’t happen in the first 30 seconds.. people will just turn off.’” That’s wild to me, and the same data-driven approach to creative decision-making that Barry satirized last season.I’m not even saying that’s bad. It was arguably a good thing in this case. I’m sure Ghosted is trying to be a crowd-pleaser, and crowd-pleasers are by definition made with audiences in mind. It just makes me wonder, what other kind of compromises we’re going to see in the future.
Every streaming thing has to have at least one scene with a gorilla or something that the protagonist thinks is a gorilla so a gorilla can be depicted in the teaser image because the data shows people are more likely to click play on a streaming thing with a gorilla on the teaser image than a thing without a gorilla on the teaser image.
‘Gorillas in the Mist’ has absolutely killed it on streaming.
I hear the original version is The Magnificent Ambersons of gender-flipped-spy-action-rom-coms.
Once we finally find that workprint in South America, it’s really going to come as a shock
if “something doesn’t happen in the first 30 seconds.. people will just turn off.”And here I am watching close to five minutes of History of the World: Part II like a sucker.
okay now find an excuse for all the supremely hack needle drops in the movie, as a director who’s made mostly music-centric films
Couldn’t they have just trimmed that kindergarten-level conversation between stalls at that open market? For a long split second I thought the movie was going to play out in real time, my god my ears were bleeding from that. And considering how much (uh, all of it) was divulged in commercials prior to release, the fact that they weren’t hampered by keeping her day-gig a big reveal, couldn’t they have just started the flick with some pre-credits James Bond scenario? Maybe a parachute drop, mid-air fight, her taking out the baddies, nailing the superhero-landing, then killing some time in the small town that she just dropped in on by buying the potted plant to hide some tiny mcguffin to transport somewhere? Cut to intro credits?
I mean, the movie was fucking terrible. It came out 15 years too late, and even then it would have sucked. Doesn’t matter what was edited out or in.That being said, (Spoilers) the scene where different assassins were kidnapping the main duo and kept killing each other was pretty funny, but should have been taken to more extremes. And the Ryan Reynolds cameo carrying on the joke of her boyfriends always losing body parts was hilarious. This movie could have been what They Came Together was for romantic comedies set in New York. Real missed opportunity.
Not a great film for sure. While it’s a shame it got edited down, I don’t necessarily think it’s a bad thing. For a film like this, you want to get straight into the action rather than fuck around when it’s already long. Cut to the chase and keep going.
Someone at Apple TV+ thought Chris Evans and Ana de Armas together wasn’t enough to pull audiences in? Huh…