Meet Dartmouth’s own Mr. Hollywood

Four years ago Dartmouth High School teacher Joe Cote posted a short story on Reddit as a way to share his writing with other writers and readers.

“When I posted the story online I had zero expectation of anyone seeing this,” Cote said. “If I had received a couple of likes on Reddit or something that just would have been so cool.”

Little did he know just how widely read his story would become.

In March 2024, someone who claimed he was a Hollywood producer commented and said he wanted to talk.

“I completely ignored it because I thought it was a scam,” Cote said.

The commenter, who is now his manager, tried again and Cote rejected him again until the commenter said, “Trust me, man, you’re going to want to get on the phone with me,” Cote said, who ultimately agreed to meet over Zoom.

“After that initial call, I think my head was spinning, like, ‘What the heck is going on?’” he said.

Cote’s story, “I pretended to be a missing girl,” is about a drifter who sees a photo of a missing girl and notices just how much they resemble each other.

The young woman looks the girl up, and after learning that not only is the girl still missing but that her family has a lot of money, she schemes to impersonate the missing girl and rob the family.

“But things do not go as planned,” Cote said.

He explained the inspiration for the story came from his fascination with missing person stories and novels by author Gillian Flynn, including “Gone Girl,” which his dad forced him to read before he saw the movie in 2014.

“I remember waking up to him just storming into my room and he threw the book at me one Saturday morning [and] just said, ‘Read it,’” Cote said. “And I’m really glad I did because I was blown away.”

He added, “I remember reading that book and thinking, ‘I want to do that. The way that I felt reading this book, I want to do that to other people.’”

Now his story has been picked up by Warner Brothers and will be produced through Fifty-Fifty Films, which was founded by actress Sydney Sweeney, who has starred in “The White Lotus,” “Euphoria” and “Anyone But You” and will also be acting in the film.

Oscar-winning screenwriter Eric Roth, who wrote the screenplay for movies including “Forest Gump” and “Dune: Part One,” is writing the screenplay.

“If this had been some awful TV, movie or something like really bad straight-to-DVD type thing that nobody ever saw, even that would have been so cool,” Cote said.

Cote, who works as an education support professional at Dartmouth High School in the English department, said it was difficult to talk about the movie at work because it isn’t a topic that naturally comes up.

“How do I just mention, ‘Oh, by the way, this is something really huge that’s happening to me,” he said.

But after news of the upcoming movie came out and one student saw a TikTok of Cote’s face next to Sydney Sweeney’s, the high school is now well-aware.

“I was in the hallway last week and I heard a group of kids walking by going, ‘That’s the guy right there,’” Cote said. “I’m just standing right there, like, ‘I’m still me, so it’s fine. You guys can come talk to me. I’ll tell you all about this now.’”

He added, “They’ve been kind of poking fun and having their fun and calling me Mr. Hollywood when they see me down the hallways and I’m like, ‘Alright, guys.’”

Cote is an executive producer for the film, but said he still has his regular life amid it all.

“I go to Dartmouth High School,” he said. “I’m an ESP. I come home and take my dog out. My girlfriend and I eat dinner, watch TV.”

And though it’s been a year since the producer reached out to him on Reddit, Cote said he’s still trying to process all that’s going on.

“It’s the craziest thing,” he said.