It's been awhile since I've talked about the upcoming Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance and the reason is simple. I just haven't really been looking forward to it. Ghost Rider was okay, but not great. A disappointing showing that in my opinion was actually saved by Nic Cage. Yea, I said it. Nic Cage saved a movie.
But I have been keeping tabs on the sequel/not quite a sequel directed by the Crank team of Mark Neveldine and Brian Taylor. So it's time to share some of the news that is slowly making me interested in this project again.
First we head over to SuperHeroHype where one of the FX group working in the film was announced, as well as basically everything you need to know about the production of the movie:
In another win for Australia’s talented VFX industry, Iloura today announced it had been appointed as one of the VFX studios on Ghost RiderTM: Spirit of Vengeance.
Iloura’s executive producer, Simon Rosenthal, said that this project would see the studio’s continued growth in capacity as more artists join the studio to complete the 500 plus shots on the film and well as continue work on The Killer Elite and other projects.
"Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance presents us with another tremendous opportunity to work on a complex, Hollywood CG project. Being appointed as one of the studios is an acknowledgement of Iloura’s growing reputation in delivering high quality visual effects,” says Rosenthal.
This project comes on the back of Iloura’s Emmy Nominated work on HBO’s The Pacific and recent feature film projects Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark with Guillermo Del Toro as well as 3D feature film Sanctum which was executive produced by James Cameron.
Nicolas Cage returns as Johnny Blaze in Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance. In the successor to the worldwide hit Ghost Rider, Johnny – still struggling with his curse as the devil’s bounty hunter – is hiding out in a remote part of Eastern Europe when he is recruited by a secret sect of the church to save a young boy (Fergus Riordan) from the devil (Ciara?n Hinds). At first, Johnny is reluctant to embrace the power of the Ghost Rider, but it is the only way to protect the boy – and possibly rid himself of his curse forever. Mark Neveldine and Brian Taylor direct from a screenplay by Scott M. Gimple & Seth Hoffman and Mark Neveldine & Brian Taylor, and a story by David S. Goyer, based on the Marvel Comic. Steven Paul, Ashok Amritraj, Michael De Luca, Avi Arad and Ari Arad are the producers. The executive producers are E. Bennett Walsh, David S. Goyer, Stan Lee, Mohammed Mubarak Al Mazrouei, Edward Borgerding, and Mark Steven Johnson. The film will be distributed by Columbia Pictures and Hyde Park Entertainment.
Then we have a couple of interviews with Cage about his next ride as the Ghost Rider.
The first one is from Splashpage where Cage talks about the increased supernatural element in GR:SoV:
Cage has been saying, most recently in an interview with Digital Spy, (that) he promised the film is "not going to be like any comic book movie you've ever seen. We keep stressing that Ghost Rider is the most supernatural superhero of all and that's going to really come out in this movie."
"We’ve been coming up with a lot of interesting things to do in the abstract, to help support the supernatural aspect of the character," he said. "He is the most supernatural superhero of all, after all."
So that's obviously a good thing, as Ghost Rider is not a character who needs the "real world" treatment. He doesn't need to fit in with the rest of the heroes, it's always been his strength to be on the outside.
The next interview on Splashpage, Cage promises an "Entirely New Experience" from director Mark Neveldine:
"It’s going to be really wild," said Cage of the "Ghost Rider" pseudo-sequel. "[There's] a lot of adrenaline. It’s like extreme sports."
"One of the directors, Mark Neveldine, is literally like a stuntman/filmmaker. He’s getting shots and he’s also a cameraman and director," he continued. "So he’s getting shots on roller blades, off of bungee cords. He’s really risking his life to make the movie."
Cage previously lauded the death-defying efforts of the "Spirit Of Vengeance" filmmaking duo, Mark Neveldine and Brian Taylor, who made for themselves as the creative minds behind the wild "Crank" film franchise.
"Brian Taylor ... he was a big advocate for me playing Ghost Rider the character himself, and that allowed me to go in a completely new direction with this version of it," said Cage. "'Spirit of Vengeance' will be an entirely new experience."
And the other half of the directing team, Brian Taylor, has a little to say about their re-envisioning of the Ghost Rider mythology:
"We basically completely re-envisioned the whole start of the character, and actually had to re-engineer the origin of the Ghost Rider," he told Movieline during a chat at South By Southwest this week.
He continued, "The whole mythology behind the Ghost Rider that existed in the comic books never really made sense to me, so we sort of had to re-engineer the entire back-story of the Ghost Rider into something new."
In the comics, stunt motorcyclist Johnny Blaze sells his soul to the demon Mephisto to save his cancer-stricken stepfather's life. When dear, old stepdad dies in a tragic motorcycle accident, Mephisto comes to collect. After Blaze refuses to play ball, his soul ends up bonded to another demon, Zarathos, whose powers turn him into the skeletal, fiery force of vengeance known as Ghost Rider.
Whatever your opinion of the origin story may be, there's no denying that it has been long-established. Movieline probed Taylor on this point, asking about the challenges of re-introducing the character when audiences are so familiar with him, both from the comics and the original film.
"We’re just looking at it as an evolution. The movie takes place years later. We’re not disowning the first movie but this Ghost Rider is an evolved form of the previous Ghost Rider," Taylor explained.
"And the mythology that went behind it is stuff that never got delved into in the first movie, anyway. Like, they don’t talk about who the demon is from when Johnny Blaze becomes the Ghost Rider. We get into that and really get into who that guy is, what his story is, and what makes Ghost Rider the way that he is."
Okay, So I'm starting to get interested again. But with all the talk of how it's being filmed and their take on the Ghost Rider, we don't have a lot of story ideas or even who he might be facing.
...
This just in, We do have villain confirmation. I repeat, We have villain confirmation.
SuperHeroHype reports:
Johnny Whitworth, who stars in this week's Limitless, has confirmed in an interview with AMC Theatres that he'll be playing Blackout in the upcoming Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance.
Introduced into the Marvel Universe in the early '90s, Blackout was a thug for hire who, after being scorched by Ghost Rider's hellfire, gained demonic powers and sought vengeance against the antihero (at that time Daniel Ketch, brother to Johnny Blaze).
While Whitworth has been confirmed for the film since late last year, it was not known that he'd be playing a character from the comics.
"I play the villain who, at the beginning, up until like page 70, is human," explains Whitworth, "I'm not a very nice guy. I'm bad. I get turned into, for those who read 'Ghost Rider', the character Blackout. I get turned into him by the devil to complete my job. That gives me the fortitude to fight Ghost Rider and the supernatural abilities to compete on some level with that guy."It's an interesting idea to bring into this movie, especially since this takes place around 10 years after Johnny Blaze became Ghost Rider. Lots of time to build up some animosity between the two, if that's where they are going with it. But we are still a bit away from the release so I'm sure we'll hear more details about him soon.
Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance rides into theaters 02.17.12
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