ghosts tell stories.
Some stories are singular and others are multiple. And when it repeats, it becomes more than a story. It becomes…a franchise.
Everyone loves a good franchise. The most successful examples are those that build and extend through time, referencing source material and iterating on a common theme, while still telling a story that is enjoyable on its own. If you do it right, you get the likes of Star Wars, The Sopranos, Harry Potter, The West Wing, Seinfeld, and the MCU. Miss the mark and you end up with Sharknado, Transformers, Saw, and whatever is currently playing on HGTV.
Here at ghostwrite, we plan on building plenty of collectible story franchises. Starting with our first one: Schrödinger’s ghost.
The Dawn of a Franchise
The first Schrödinger’s ghost was created in August of 2024. Hand-painted a monochromatic golden yellow, we called it “New Dawn.” It was part of a special seeding package for 100 friends and family, distributed just a few weeks before our public launch.
“Schrödinger’s ghost: New Dawn” came with an OG iPod Shuffle loaded with an audio track that was equal parts explanatory and inspirational – and all parts fking awesome. (It’s 94 seconds; do something nice for yourself for a change, click the audio track link and open your earholes). The slick, face-of-the-future AI voice delivered through 20-year-old, shot-of-nostalgia tech spoke to several layers of meaning at once.
First, it spoke to the ironies of the seeding process: the anticipation and frequent disappointments of all the packages that came before it.
Second, it spoke to the essence of the ghostwrite brand. “New Dawn” is a blank canvas upon a blank canvas. It can tell any story, just like ghostwrite itself. Each one is hand painted a single solid color, reflecting the idea that 100 seemingly-identical ghosts actually contain 100 different stories – or more.
To quote the star of our personal favorite movie franchise: That’s heavy.
Now, we can reveal that there was actually a third layer of meta-goodness to the yellow, uh, layer cake that was “New Dawn”: it marked the beginning of our very first franchise.
“New Dawn” was the first installment. “Winter Blue”, which is releasing to the public this week, is the second. Here’s the key info:
- Franchise: Schrödinger’s ghost
- Franchise Release: #2
- ghostwrite Release: #41
- Size: 400%
- Population: 100
- Available for Sale: 50
- Release Method: Blind Dutch Auction
- Release Date: February 4-6, 2025
Ok, but why “Schrödinger”?
Fair question. And now that you’ll be hearing it on a regular basis – and now that we have blog-length type space with which to operate – you deserve a blog-length type explanation of the name.
Schrödinger’s Cat is a thought experiment devised by Nobel Prize-winning Austrian physicist Erwin Schrödinger (in conversation with Albert Einstein) to aid in their understanding of certain problems of quantum mechanics. The scientific details are less important than the basic setup, which goes something like this:
There is a cat in a closed box. Until you open the box, the cat is simultaneously alive and dead. However, once you open the box, the cat is either alive or dead, but no longer both.
This scenario is featured in many theoretical questions of the interpretations of quantum mechanics – including, for example, if the cat is dead when you open the box, did you kill it?
For our purposes, you may have surmised, we are using the term ‘Schrödinger’ to refer to an unknown story which will remain unknown unless and until you take the proactive step to create it.
This echoes the famous French literary theorist, Roland Barthes, who defined great storytelling thusly:
“The goal of literary work is to make the reader no longer a consumer, but a producer of the text.”
In other words: the best stories are the ones we tell ourselves.
At this point, you may be wondering: is the first ghostwrite collectible franchise really built on a synthesis of Austrian theoretical physics and French literary theory? The answer is yes: yes it is. If we were to pitch this franchise to a team of profit-seeking Hollywood executives, they’d probably call us crazy. But we prefer to think of ourselves as daring.
Schrödinger’s cinematic universe
ghosts tell stories. And ghosts, usually, tell the story of the brand partner on the box. But Schrödinger’s ghosts exist in a closed box – a metaphysical closed box of ‘storylessness’. Only by imbuing it with a story can the box be opened.
We provide a color as the tiniest of hints to aid you in crafting a story. It’s unnecessary, really – the color – but it’s fun. It gives everyone the same starting point for each release and, more importantly, a way for us to distinguish between releases. The colors may change, but the concept remains the same: each ghost in the Schrödinger franchise is a hand-painted, single-color, partner-less canvas that can tell whatever story you want to tell.
This thematic throughline extends all the way to the packaging. Most of the ghosts we sell come in fully clear, fully transparent packaging. This choice is intentional – and important (you can read more about our reasoning here).
But the Schrödinger franchise is different. For Schrödinger’s ghosts – both “New Dawn” and “Winter Blue” – the packaging is opaque: a physical reflection of the metaphysical reality.
What’s Next
Franchise building is fluid and unpredictable. You never want to predetermine where a story might lead. That said, we have a good idea of the general roadmap.
Moving forward, we expect to release a new 400% Schrödinger’s ghost on a quarterly basis. Sometimes more often. Sometimes less often.
Each Schrödinger’s ghost will feature a different, seasonal color. “New Dawn” was painted in summertime yellow; “Winter Blue” was painted in frigid blue.
With each subsequent release, the broader franchise will become that much more intricate and interesting and nuanced. A kaleidoscope of stories limited only by the imagination of the viewer. A canvas of infinite possibility, with infinite stories to tell.
And while Schrödinger’s ghost is our first franchise, there are several other ghostwrite franchises in the works. But that’s a story for another day.
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