People tell me that Ghosts on the Red Line would make a great Ben Affleck film.

After all, Ben was raised in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and he gravitates towards Cambridge/Boston stories, like Good Will Hunting that he made with his pal Matt Damon, and his gritty crime caper Our Town. It stands to reason, then, that for Ben’s brand of Boston-flavored movie magic Ghosts on the Red Line about strange encounters on Cambridge/Boston subway trains would be a natural. Or so people say!

At book signings, I’ve heard over and over, “When’s the movie coming out?”

To which I’ve replied, while scrawling my signature and good wishes on the title page of their newly purchased book, “Ben Affleck’s people have not yet contacted my people.”

“His loss,” they say.

That was then. 

But now, with our Subway Ghosts soon to be released in theatres, followed by streaming on Amazon Prime, Ben has greenlit my revealing to the world how our venture in movie land came to be. He’s still allergic to media glare, that hasn’t changed, but when it comes to a newly-released movie that he executive produced, his first priority is more bums in seats and eyeballs on screens, and publicity is publicity!

“Tell your story,” he said. “Nothing off the table, no need for me to review, I trust you.”

“What about the NDA?”

“I’m hereby releasing you.  I’ll let them know.”

—

It all started with an email from Ben’s mom Chris, who as of this writing still lives in Cambridge.

“Hi Mr. Shapiro, my name is Chris Affleck. I really enjoyed your Ghosts on the Red Line. It’s wonderfully told and I’d like to tell my sons Ben and Casey about it. Should I go ahead? Has it been optioned to someone else? Yours, Chris.”

I’d heard of Chris Affleck, of course, a former school teacher who’s a well-known activist for social causes and not shy about commenting on the recent disastrous turn in our national politics. But given all the scams out there, you never know, so initially I was suspicious.

The sender address on her email did appear to be legitimate, the usual first initial plus surname using one of the big email platforms (which I’m not revealing here).

I searched for emails sent by “Chris Affleck” to local area publications and found several, and they had the same sender email address.

So I replied, figuring I’d bail if things got hinky.

“Dear Chris, thank you very much for your note. The good news, or bad, depending on your perspective, is that Ghosts on the Red Line has not yet been optioned. Please do go ahead with Ben and Casey. I hope they enjoy it as well and I’ll look forward to hearing from either of them, or both, however they’d like to proceed. Best, Peter.”

She replied immediately, “Will do!”

Weeks passed, then months. I checked my email every day, every hour, to be honest, including the spam folder just in case. Not a word. More than once I was about to follow-up with Chris, ask how things were going, what she’d heard from her famous sons. Then I thought, no, wait, stay cool. Although I did send her a totally cool holiday greeting at Christmas, “All the best for the holidays and New Year!”

Not hint of pushy.

Also, no reply.

Where I live west of Boston, throughout the frigid winter months the ice on my driveway is indestructible, grey like granite and just as hard, but finally in March when I whack it with a hoe it breaks into chunks, and there’s wet on the asphalt underneath.

So it was metaphorically apt that in mid-March I received an email from Suzi Brzenzski, Special Production Assistant at Artists Equity, Ben and Matt’s production company.

“Hi, Peter! Suzi Brzenzski here! I work for Ben and his team at Artists Equity. Ben loves! loves! loves! your Ghosts on the Red Line! And I do too! Ben is so excited to translate your vision to the screen! I’ll send our book option paperwork to your people for their review … please LMK names & addresses! But first, and I’m sorry but this is an absolute must for Ben, we need you to sign an NDA, copy attached.  No probs if you have questions, totally understand, but Ben is insistent on the language. Hope that’s OK.  All best! Suzi!”

Suzi’s email … it was life-altering, exhilarating, and exhausting.  I could scarcely contain myself, pacing through my house, unable to sit for more than a minute.  Like winning a lottery, but better, because it meant recognition, and affirmation, and, let’s admit, if this really happened it would jolt the sales and readership not only of Ghosts on the Red Line but also of my other novels, each having their own cinematic potential, so doors were opening!  And what an adventure, to join in making an actual movie, to meet and mingle with actors and celebrities that I’d read about and seen in movies and on TV, including Ben and Casey, and Matt, and who knows who else, to experience what it was really like in their world! Studios! Movie sets! LA mansions with infinity pools! Not to mention the added income.

But I couldn’t utter the slightest peep about it. According to the NDA that Suzi sent for my signature, I could tell no-one anything about the project, nor about any dealings I had with Ben Affleck or anyone else who was involved, nor could I share any observations I might have about him, either directly or indirectly in response to any questions, via any form of communications whatsoever, nothing, nada, full stop. Violating the NDA would terminate the project and expose me to legal action for damages to recover Equity Artists’ investment plus opportunity costs plus compensation for harms to reputations of everyone involved.

I emailed Suzi, “So glad that Ben (and you) enjoyed Ghosts on the Red Line and are keen to transform my story into a movie!  Concerning the NDA, I want my lawyer to take a look at it if that’s OK with you.  Obviously that would reveal to him that we are about to embark on this project but I don’t see how that can be avoided.”

She replied that having my lawyer review the NDA would be fine, so long as he also signed one.

My lawyer friend Woody McLean mostly does wills and probate, and I was pretty sure he had no experience with Hollywood legalese, but I trusted that he could read between the lines as only lawyers can.

I arranged to meet with Woody about a “sensitive matter” and he agreed. We met in his office on the second floor of a small professional services building on a side street in our town center.  He was stocky and his shirt wasn’t entirely tucked and his hair looked like he’d been in a windstorm, which led people to overlook that he was sharp, and careful, and didn’t miss much.

“I’m going to tell you something that you can’t tell anyone about,” I said. “You have to promise that it will remain just between us, and also sign an NDA.”

“You’ve got my attention,” Woody said.  He drew his finger across his lips. “Zipped!”

I told him my big news.

“Whoa!”

“Yeah,” I said. “Whoa!”

After scanning the NDA draft, he said, “Is there any reason you’d want to violate this?”

“No.”

“Then I see no problem signing it.”

“There’s more paperwork coming, about optioning the book.”

“Not my specialty,” Woody said.  “I took a course on entertainment law at law school. It’s complicated. I’ll ask around, find someone for you who knows this stuff.”

“I want you to do it. Keep the circle small.”

“Yeah, small. And clueless.”

“No way around it. You’ll figure it out. Last thing I need is a leak and the whole thing imploding.”

“Are you sure? It would cost you if I miss something in the fine print.”

“I’ll take that risk.”

“Fine, I’ll research what’s involved in optioning books for movies and TV.”

“It’s not like there’s a bidding war for my book. I’ll take whatever they offer.”

“Well, my first advice to you as your lawyer is, don’t be too hasty. You’re dealing with Hollywood, not Mother Teresa.”

“Actually with Ben Affleck, via his mom Chris.”

“Even so…”

Then, “Your book a Ben Affleck movie, I mean, like, holy shit!”

—

When we met again in his office to review the book option paperwork, Woody said that in addition to checking online sources, he’d interrogated an entertainment lawyer named Liz Barnes while treating her to lunch at the Harvard Club in Boston.

“I got great tips,” Woody said, “so it was worth it, but Liz was very curious. Kept asking what the project was about, who was involved, would it be anyone she knew. I had to beat her off with a fork! I told her my questions were hypothetical, for a client who thought he might someday have a book he could sell, which is sort of true, or almost true.”

“Definitely not a total lie.”

“She’s not shy, in fact more like a shark, as you’d expect for an entertainment lawyer. We’ll need to keep an eye out for her in case she comes around snooping.”

—

The option proposal for Ghosts on the Red Line was from Artists Equity, not Ben Affleck personally. I’d get an up-front payment of $5000 for their exclusive rights to shop the book for twelve months. If the project were funded during that time, they would buy all audiovisual rights – film, TV, streaming – for 2% of the total production budget, up to a cap of $100,000, plus a bonus of 2% of the film’s net profit. I would get a writer’s credit in the film’s main title, “Based on the novel Ghosts on the Red Line by Peter David Shapiro.” They could assign their rights to other producers or financiers as necessary to sell the project. Before they completed the purchase, I would have to confirm that currently I owned all rights to Ghosts on the Red Line and would indemnify Artists Equity if that turned out to be untrue. Also they wanted a right of first refusal on a potential future option for my second novel The Trail of Money, which like Ghosts on the Red Line features Harry West as a main protagonist, and for my third novel Portrait of Ignatius Jones, which also features another major character from Ghosts on the Red Line, the psychic Dr. Gourmelon.

“They’ve done their homework,” I told Woody.

“Seems so.”

“Looks good to me,” I said. “I’m OK with signing.”

“Yeah, well, I have some concerns,” Woody said. “Hollywood is famous for not reporting net profits even from hit movies so they don’t have to pay their investors. So forget their share of net income, which is bullshit. You should ask for a percentage of the gross, like, half of one percent, which means you’ll at least get something, and potentially a lot. Also you should explicitly exclude from this agreement the rights for video games and stage productions, and for any merchandise that might come out of the project. And I’d stick in a request for an Executive Producer credit, along with writer’s credit.”

“What if they refuse to make any changes?  I don’t want to lose this.”

“They’ll negotiate,” Woody said. “Don’t worry.”

“I am worried!”

“Like I told you, I know diddly about this stuff,” Woody said, “but I have done my research. These asks are reasonable. And they’re expected. You’d lose all respect if you just signed their first offer.”

I emailed Suzi that my lawyer suggested a few very minor changes.

“They’re highlighted in a marked-up copy of your proposal (attached). Hope Ben agrees they’re reasonable, LMK if questions!”

She replied, “We’ll get back to you.”

After a couple of weeks of emails back and forth, they accepted Woody’s changes with several adjustments – to cap royalty payments at the greater of either one half of one percent of gross or $400,000, and to include video games among their audiovisual rights.

Woody thought we’d gotten as much as could be expected, so I signed the agreement as modified, and returned it to Suzi with a question, “What’s next?”

“Wait for Ben to sell the project. Fingers crossed!”

Two months later, I received Suzi’s email: “Wup! Wup! Ben has a partner! Amazon MGM Studios! Purchase docs for Ghosts on the Red Line being drawn up. Will send soon! Plus purchase cheque! Congratulations!!!!! XOXO Suzi”

Plus, that same day, an email from Ben Affleck, my first direct contact from him, “Hey Esteemed Writer, Let’s get together. — Ben”

—

A beefy guy in an untucked shirt and wearing an LA Dodgers ball cap and sunglasses was holding a sign for “Peter S” in the LAX Arrivals area.

“Is that for me?” I asked him. “Unless there’s another Peter S…”

“Are you the ghost story writer?”

“Yep.”

“Welcome to paradise,” he said. “I’m Richie. Need help with the bag?”

“No, thanks, I got it.” It was a carry-on roller with hardly anything in it for what I’d been told would be a very quick visit just to get acquainted.

“Good flight?”

“Can’t complain.”

Which was an understatement. Unlike previous flights to California when I was crammed in Economy with multitudes of other sufferers, Ben, or Artists Equity, had provided a ticket for what American calls its Flagship First travel.  Lie-back seat! Heated almonds! Tender steak for lunch on an actual plate! So much room!

In the parking garage, we walked past a row of expensive-looking cars before stopping at what appeared to be a conventional black Chevrolet Suburban SUV.

“I’ve read that Ben Affleck has a collection of high-end EVs,” I said.

“He does. We use the Suburban to confuse the papps.”

After popping the trunk for my bag, Richie held open a back passenger door for me to get in.

I hesitated, then, “Can I sit in front with you?  So that I can see where we’re going?”

There was a magazine on the front passenger seat called California Life. Richie tossed it towards the back. “Hop in,” he said. “Buckle up.”

He was a cautious driver. I’d expected more aggressiveness from someone of his bulk, which was stereotyping, I know. At intersections on our way out of the LAX complex, he paused to allow drivers facing us to make their left turns. Out on the freeway, he slowed down to let drivers merge into our lane.

I didn’t say anything but he noticed that I noticed.  Glancing over at me, he said, “Hurrying will maybe save us five minutes out of a twenty-five minute ride. It’s not worth the aggravation…Unless you’re in a rush…”

“No, no, it’s fine. More time to enjoy the view.”

“Just highways and cars.”

“And palm trees,” I said. “Authentic LA.”

“We aim to please.”

We were on the 405, then on 10 for a while, until we reached Santa Monica, where we turned right onto the coastal CA 1 North which ran between, on our left,  the Pacific Ocean and beachside houses and, on our right, looming hills and roadside signs captioned “Falling Rocks” with depictions of large boulders falling on cars.

“What’s the point of those signs?” I said. “Not much you can do if they happen.”

“The point is for the state not to get sued,” Richie said. “They can say we were warned.”

In gaps between beachside houses, I saw open lots with remnants of foundation walls and chimneys behind fences and No Trespassing signs.

“The fire got all the way down here?” I said.

“Yeah.”

We took a right exit off of CA 1 for Pacific Palisades.

“Not far now,” Richie said.

We climbed into the hills on a windy road, past more fenced-in lots, some still covered with rubble and marked by solitary brick chimneys, and others cleared out, just dirt and weeds. But also, here and there, I saw work underway, from some still in early stages of wood framing, to other houses that looked ready for occupancy with new roofs and landscaping.

“It was a fucker,” Richie said.  “Most of the Palisades were gone, many of Ben’s friends and neighbors. A real fucker.”

“But he was OK?”

“We had to evacuate, but we got lucky,” Richie said. “It missed our street.”

After a stretch of road with high undamaged hedges on both sides, we pulled over at an entrance with a high solid wood gate.  Richie reached out his window to tap buttons on a code box, and the gate swung open, revealing a long driveway between rows of olive trees.

“I’ll take you straight to the guest house,” he said. “It’s where Ben’s mom stays for her visits.”

“Is Ben here?”

“In the main house. He’ll let you get settled before he comes by.”

—

My bedroom on the second floor of the guest house had a sliding glass door to a balcony overlooking gardens and the main house. 

Downstairs was mostly a large open space with sections for kitchen, living room, dining room, and a wall of floor-to-ceiling glass windows and doors out to the gardens.

Family photos on shelves and tables showed younger versions of Chris, Ben, and Casey, several with the boys in costumes for school plays.

—

My impression of Ben Affleck from his movies was that he was classically handsome, with a strong chin, great teeth, and a remarkably unlined clean-shaven face. As an actor he conveyed the meanings of his parts with minimal expressions or movements. Other male movie leads, such as George Clooney or Brad Pitt, were more expressive. They looked sad, or surprised, or scared, or happy, or exuberant. But while Ben Affleck’s face stayed mostly unchanged, he somehow let you know what he was thinking. He came across as a normal guy dealing with unusual situations. No one would accuse him of over acting.

But the Ben Affleck I thought that I knew from his movies wasn’t the one who greeted me after his energetic whacking of the brass lions-head knocker at the center of the guest house’s front door.

He had a thick dark beard, flecked with grey.

He was larger than he appeared on screen, looking every inch of his 6’4”, and also thicker, showing his 53 years of a non-ascetic life style, not flabby but substantial, a big man.

Also, he was a goofball!

“So finally I get to meet the faaaamous authah!” he said, waggling his eyebrows and flashing a toothy beard-encircling grin. Then clasping his hands behind his back, he bowed, “Call me Ben, your humble servant!”

“No need to bow,” I told him. “Ben.”

“Least I could do,” he said. “We’re about to do great things together!”

“And you may call me Peter,” I said. “Unless you’re too awestruck in which case I also answer to Dr. Shapiro.”

“I’ll call you Doctor,” he said. Then, with another bow, “Let us repair to the pool.”

—

We took chaise lounges on either side of a table and shade umbrella. The pool was surrounded on three sides by glass sliders into rooms of the main house and at the far end by a hut with a roof and fireplace.

“Haven’t used that fireplace since the fire,” Ben said. “Can’t stand the smell of smoke. Nor can anyone else around here.”

Richie emerged from the house pushing a trolley. He placed on the table a glass pitcher filled with ice and another filled with water, and a bucket of ice and beer bottles, and glass mugs, plus a tray with plates of small sandwiches.

“Hope this keeps you going until dinner,” Ben said. “Richie’s making salmon. Jen will come by to join us, if that’s OK.”

“Jen?”

“My first ex-wife. She walks over from her place in Brentwood.”

“Do I have a choice?” I said.

Richie made a throat clearing sound.

“Just kidding,” I said.

“We’re going to have such fun making our movie,” Ben said, with another bearded grin.

—

He leaned forward like he was about to share a confidence or, as turned out to be the case, to cushion a blow.

“I’m working on the screenplay now.”

“Good.”

“Don’t’ get upset, but you should be aware, there will be changes from the book. It’s what he have to do, to make the movie work. It’s just the way things are.”

“Of course.”

“It’s not a reflection on the book, which I loved.”

“I understand.”

“Some writers get upset.”

“I’m not upset. I get it, movies and books are different. You have to make changes.”

“Like, for example, Alexandra, I’m considering maybe she’s Irish, or from Russia.”

“Not Israeli?”

“Right now with Gaza, we’d be asking for trouble.”

“But if she’s Russian, what about Ukraine?”

“She would have left Russia before any of that, maybe even before Putin, when she was still a kid.”

“I thought it was important to the story that Alexandra was ex-military, and that her dad was a former tank commander.”

“I don’t think that’s essential to the movie. Also we can give her dad a different back story that’s compelling enough. Like if they’re Irish, maybe he was once a priest who left the church as a protest, or was defrocked for some reason. Maybe if they’re Russian he was a dissident who was imprisoned for many years, but then got out when the Soviet Union collapsed. I’m working on it.”

“I’m available as a reviewer, and interested.”

“So noted,” Ben said. “While we’re on the topic, I’m also considering ideas about Dr. Gourmelon.”

I said nothing.

“In the book she’s fat and she’s sensitive about her weight. Which raises issues about who’d play her in the movie.”

“How about Melissa McCarthy?” I said. “

“Yeah, she’d be good. Melissa can play serious. She’s really good.”

“Dr. Gourmelon is serious, haunted even, but also she’s funny, even if unintentionally, like Melissa McCarthy…”

“We did a movie together,” Ben said. “Long time ago. We had a good time. Problem is the weight thing limits our options. Dr. Gourmelon is a psychic. I want to make her witchy, alluring, maybe sexy, and if we drop the weight angle, we’d have more choices. Like Nicole Kidman, for example.”

“She’s played an actual witch, in Practical Magic,” I said, a fun fact that I knew because it was one of the entertainment options on my flight to LA..

“We establish Nicole as Dr. Gourmelon, and if Ghosts is a hit, we’d follow up with Portrait of Ignatius Jones with Nicole as the lead.”

“It’ll be a hit,” I said. “Can’t miss!”

“From your lips, Doctor…” said Ben.

—

“Just curious,” Ben said, “who do you see for Harry West?”

“When I wrote the book, I had you in mind for Harry.”

“But now I’m too old, and too fat?”

“I still think you’d be great in that role,” I said.

“How about Casey? He’s been all over me on this.”

Actually it had crossed my mind that Casey might be a better fit. He was younger than Ben, and looked younger, and he came across as more intense, which was how I imagined Harry West dealing with the loss of his daughter and with the challenges of launching his and Alexandra’s Visitation Room. No way was I going to tell that to Ben, however.

“Also great.”

“That helps a lot, thanks!”

“What does your mom think?”

“She knows better than to pick one of us over the other, re-open old wounds.”

“You’d both be great as Harry.”

…To Be Continued