British filmmaker Dexter Fletcher has revealed that Apple asked him to cut a scene in the movie Ghosted because their "data said people would turn it off".
The Apple TV+ crime thriller Ghosted stars Hollywood actors Chris Evans and Ana de Armas. The filmmaker, who had directed the 2019 biographical film Rocketman, told a media source that he had initially planned a long and elaborate opening sequence. Fletcher then took the scene to the Apple team for approval.
"I thought it was great, this three-minute opening scene, and they said you can't do it because if it goes on and something doesn't happen in the first 30 seconds, we know the data shows that people will just turn off," the director was quoted as saying. "I don't want that, so I make the compromise," he added.
Fletcher said you can't make a film for streaming the same way you do for theatrical. "There are different metrics and approaches. There has to be, for the very reason that people can turn off very quickly," he was quoted as saying.
Fletcher had planned a long opening sequence that involved Ana De Armas driving a car through a mountain in reference to a scene from the 1978 film Foul Play, starring Goldie Hawn and Chevy Chase. Apple, however, raised concerns about whether it would resonate with a streaming audience.
Ghosted was the most-watched movie debut to date for Apple TV+. In the first two days after dropping on April 21, it pulled in 328,500 viewers, according to the report.
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