Stone appeared in three films released in 2009. The first of these was opposite Matthew McConaughey, Jennifer Garner and Michael Douglas in Mark Waters' "Ghosts of Girlfriends Past". Loosely based on Charles Dickens' 1843 novella "A Christmas Carol", the romantic comedy has her playing a ghost who haunts her former boyfriend. Critical reaction to the film was negative, though it was a modest commercial success. Her most financially profitable venture that year was Ruben Fleischer's $102.3 million-grossing horror comedy film "Zombieland", in which she features alongside Jesse Eisenberg, Woody Harrelson and Abigail Breslin. In the film, she appeared as a con artist and survivor of a zombie apocalypse, in a role which Chris Hewitt of "Empire" magazine found "somewhat underwritten." In a more positive review, "The Telegraph"s critic wrote, "hugely promising Stone... [is a tough cookie who projects the aura of being wiser than her years." Stone's third release in 2009 was Kieran and Michelle Mulroney's "Paper Man", a comedy-drama which disappointed critics.