Warning: This post contains spoilers for the new movie Ghosted!Ghosted‘s multiple Marvel cameos have been explained by the director. The film, which premiered on Apple TV+ on April 21, reunites stars Ana de Armas and Chris Evans for the third time after Knives Out and The Grey Man. Evans plays a hopeless romantic named Cole who is ghosted by de Armas’ Sadie and follows her to London, only to discover that she is a spy, and he is now embroiled in an action-packed adventure.
TheWrap recently sat down with director Dexter Fletcher to discuss how the Ghosted cast was able to include cameos from so many Marvel Cinematic Universe cast members. The film’s surprise appearances in a chain of deadly spy antics include Evans’ Captain America franchise co-stars Anthony Mackie and Sebastian Stan, as well as Deadpool star Ryan Reynolds. John Cho also makes a cameo. Fletcher shared that the bulk of these cameos came because Evans has a “very interesting phone book,” in addition to the fact that Reynolds owed him for his surprise cameo in 2021’s Free Guy. Read Fletcher’s full quote below:
Well, look, Chris has a very interesting phone book. And there was suggestions in the script about, “Hey, wouldn’t it be great if such and such a person played this part?’”And we took that and really ran with it. I mean, I was very keen that that section of the film still did what it needs to do dramatically and comedically.
Ryan told me that Chris turned up on very short notice on Free Guy, it was just a phone call. And he said that they didn’t really know each other well, but he needed him, and he just phoned up and went, ‘Hey, [can] you do it?’ He came the next day, and did that.
I think that kind of goodwill carries, you know? And so, Ryan flew in, wrote that scene, after a little bit of discussion with me about about previous ex-boyfriends of Sadie’s. And we put an eyepatch on him and played around.
Chris Evans Hasn’t Fallen Far From the Marvel Tree
Although Chris Evans has seemingly retired from playing Captain America after 2019’s Avengers: Endgame, the actor has made a habit of reuniting with Marvel co-stars and filmmakers wherever possible. Part of this is due to the fact that the MCU has such a vast cast of well-known actors. At this point, it’s almost impossible for any new movie not to feature at least one or two of them at a time.
An excellent illustration of this point is the 2011 film What’s Your Number?. That rom-com serendipitously happens to feature MCU stars Evans, Mackie, Chris Pratt, and Martin Freeman, years before most of them even appeared in the franchise. However, Ghosted‘s MCU cameos prove that he’s making conscious decisions to bring the gang back together as well.
Ghosted‘s cameos may be key to Evans’ attempt to forge a new identity away from Captain America. In fact, the new film is almost the exact opposite of his appearance in The Grey Man, which reunited him with Avengers: Endgame directors Joe and Anthony Russo. While in that film he played a sociopathic villain, this time around he’s playing a typical “damsel in distress” role, though both characters that are very different from Cap. That difference is thrown into even sharper relief when other Marvel creatives are on hand, which may explain Evans’ eagerness to keep reuniting with familiar MCU faces.
