Former Marvel cohorts Scarlett Johansson and Chris Evans are in advanced negotiations to reunite in Ghosted, a new Skydance-produced film from director Dexter Fletcher, per Deadline. Written by Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick, the Apple Studios project is described as “a romantic action adventure.”
Reese and Wernick, who broke onto the scene with Zombieland, are coming off of two massively successful Deadpool movies and the space thriller Life.
The David Ellison-led Skydance recently released The Tomorrow War, which moved from Paramount to Amazon Prime Video for an incredible $200 million. Skydance and Paramount also offloaded Without Remorse, a would-be Tom Clancy franchise-starter starring Michael B. Jordan, also to Amazon Prime. And just last week, Skydance set Victoria Mahoney to take over from Gina Prince-Bythewood as the director of the Old Guard sequel for Netflix.
The deep-pocketed Apple is making bullish strides in order to establish itself as a force to be reckoned with in the industry. It recently released the record-breaking Sundance title Coda, which it hopes will score the studio its first Best Picture nomination at next year’s Oscars. Apple is also in production on Martin Scorsese’s Killers of the Flower Moon, starring Jesse Plemons, Leonardo DiCaprio and Robert De Niro; the Will Smith-starrer Emancipation; and the Ridley Scott-directed Napoleon biopic Kitbag, starring Joaquin Phoenix.
Johansson recently made headlines for her legal tussle with Disney over the studio’s decision to release her Marvel Cinematic Universe swan song, Black Widow, simultaneously in theaters and on the Disney+ streaming service, allegedly impacting her share of the profits. Evans, meanwhile, recently completed filming Netflix's The Gray Man, which saw him reunite with his Avengers: Infinity War and Avengers: Endgame directors Joe and Anthony Russo.
Evans and Johansson have worked together in a bunch of Marvel films such as Captain America: The Winter Soldier and Captain America: Civil War, in addition to their appearances in the Avengers movies.
Fletcher signing on to direct Ghosted also casts a shadow of doubt over the future of the Sherlock Holmes franchise, which was already showing signs of fizzling out of public consciousness with star Robert Downey Jr.’s self-confessed semi-retirement. Fletcher had been set to direct the third installment of the franchise, which was once spearheaded by Guy Ritchie. He admitted in a 2020 appearance on the Celebrity Catch Up podcast that the film was “sitting on the back burner.”
We don’t have any plot details for Ghosted yet, but be sure to stay tuned to Collider for more updates about the project.