Good news on Ghost Rider front….

Updated on April 28, 2010 By Ken Begg 18 Comments

Expect to see a lot of reboots coming of various Marvel characters like Daredevil, the Fantastic Four and Ghost Rider.  Why?  Because, like Spider-Man, they are licensed to other studios, who usually are compelled to make a film featuring the character in some limited time frame, lest otherwise the rights revert to Marvel, now owned by Disney.  Given the reputation of Disney’s lawyers, I imagine they are waiting with baited breath to reestablish control over any character they can.

Apparently Columbia (who also currently controls Daredevil) must, if they wish to retain the rights to Ghost Rider, have a film in production as of November 14th of this year.  Since Cage is likely to be filming a third installment of the National Treasures franchise by then, Columbia will need to recast the part.  This is good news, as Cage was awful as Johnny Blaze, doing his jokey Elvis impression for the whole friggin’ film and making him addicted to jelly beans and other pointless weirdness.  (He’s too old now, but I always thought Michael Biehn would be the picture perfect Johnny Blaze.)  Hopefully they will dump director Mark Steven Johnson, who also helmed the studio’s equally lame Daredevil movie.

The question for Ghost Rider is what to do with him?  As lame as the Cage movie was, it did include about all of his signature cool visuals, like GR riding his flame cycle up a building or over water.  Given that the studio will have to rush a film into production in only six months if they wish to keep their rights to the character, well, we’re not talking a recipe for success there.

If I had my druthers, GR would end up back with Marvel, who might make something of him.  Hell, maybe we’d get a Champions film.  (OK, probably not, especially since Sony owns Angel and Ice Man as part of the X-Men franchise.)  We’ll see.

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  • David Fullam

    Biehn as Ghost Rider? Yeah, I could seriously see that working back in the day.

  • Yeah, I think he would have brought a realistic blue collar feel to it. You could buy him as a motorcycle stunt rider / mechanic / etc.

  • Mark Steven Johnson has previously been confirmed that he would not be returning. At one point the talked about storyline would have had Ghost Rider in Europe now allied with the Vatican battling supernatural demons on behalf of the Church. I’m under the impression that idea has been scrapped. Personally, if they insist on doing another film (and there’s no logical reason why they should) they should take it back to basics like the original comic and have Johnny Blaze practically doing the “Incredible Hulk” TV shtick of traveling the back roads in and out of small towns where he transforms to fight local criminals and assorted supernatural enemies pursuing him. Better yet, like you said, let Marvel/Disney get the rights back. There has been talk they would like to also do a series of computer animated movies based on certain characters and Ghost Rider is one that might actually work better that way given how cartoonish he looked in the live-action film.

  • Foymeister — As you may (or may not) be aware, the majority of the Johnny Blaze / Ghost Rider’s run back in the day consisted of exactly that…Blaze traveling the backroads of the country (this after Dr. Druid screwed up his steady work in Hollywood and after the Champions disbanded) and generally running across some supernatural menace. I agree that era of the character is ripe for an adaptation.

  • Rock Baker

    I wasn’t blown away by the Ghost Rider movie, but I did enjoy it. (Not really being that heavy into Marvel characters, I guess I didn’t have as much to get steamed about. For me, the flick was empty, but fun.) Good vs Evil is a theme that always works and I think we all enjoy seeing the devil get poked in the eye. Plus, having Peter Fonda on board was a nice touch. I never was a big Peter Fonda fan, but he seems to get cooler as he gets older and must transition from young rebel to an established Hollywood vet (Bruce Dern has similarly gotten extra points by virtue of age).
    However, a scaled-down, backroads, stumble-across-supernatural-evil-in-the-heartland type of picture WOULD be pretty spiffy. But I’m betting that the producers will insist on a big spectacle, the-fate-of-the-very-planet-is-in-danger style of pic.

  • You know what a perfect Ghost Rider movie would be like? A lot like Pumpkinhead. Just throw Johnny Blaze in there.

  • Ken – Believe me, I’m well versed in old school Seventies Ghost Rider. First discovered back in junior high at the peak of my comic collecting phase when sifting through a bargain bin at my local comic shop and happened upon this cover with a flaming skull on a motorcycle. Thought it looked cool and after that one issue I was hooked and kept on coming back every week when I got my allowance to buy more cheap back issues. Practically collected the entire run of the series (no Champions though, never got into any of the super team comics). Even spilled over to me snatching up back issues of other Seventies Marvel monster titles like Werewolf By Night, Man-Thing, and Tales of the Zombie (Tomb of Dracula somehow never peaked my interest). Most comic shop patrons were coming in regularly to buy the latest hot Marvel/DC/indie comic of the period and here I was this teenager that seemed to be gobbling up everything with the names “Ploog” and “Wolfman” in the credits. Had almost finished up the run when Marvel brought the character back in the Nineties. Really dug that run too up until they started putting too much attention on old Johnny Blaze with his hellfire shotgun and partnered Ghost Rider with another version of himself. Also about the time that my interest in comics more or less waned, right around the time the industry became obsessed with polybags, multiple covers, and other scams designed to get you to buy more “collector editions” that are almost all worthless today.

  • Rock Baker

    After I thought about it, I’m really not very conversant with Marvel characters at all. I really didn’t read that many comic books until I started to draw them, so naturally I’ve read more AC than anything else. I know the DC characters because I grew up with them on television. I know a bit of the history of Marvel, but I never really got into them so most of what I’ve seen are the recent movies and the excellent Bill Bixby Incredible Hulk series. I think what pushed me away was the same thing that drew a lot of others to Marvel, the ‘human’ and ‘relatible’ superheroes. I’m sorry, but if I’m reading something with a colorfully costumed superhero I’m in it to see the good guys take down the forces of evil, not personal problems that can be found in real life. Comic books are for escapism, the might of right, that sort of stuff. It works if its balanced right, Batman the Animated Series was a great show for example, but I’m not into ‘heavy’ comics. (Truth be told, the AC line at times can get a little too heavy for my tastes.)
    I’ve not seen Pumpkinhead, the title and the whole demon thing kinda made me shy away from it. Movies about the devil and demonic forces can be either really good or really offensive, so I haven’t gone out of my way to see a lot of them. Personally, I’d like to see a Ghost Rider movie built like an episode of The Invaders, with cultists substituting for the aliens. But I’m sure thats far too small scale for a lot of other potential ticket buyers or dvd renters.

  • The thing about Pumpkinhead is that it offers perhaps the best feel for American folklore this side of All That Money Can Buy. You should give it a shot, it’s really pretty neat, and is one of the few films where Lance Henriksen has a role worthy of him.

    I agree with you, by the way, about smaller stories. (But then, I always thought it was lame that Star Trek: The Next Generation felt they had to put the ship in danger every week.) Man, I’d dearly love to see a Luke Cage movie shot like a ’70s blaxploitation flick.

  • Rock Baker

    Well, if I run across Pumpkinhead I guess I’ll give it a go. I’ve checked out some movies I’ve avoided and seen them turn out to be pretty good (not a lot, but some of them). You might get your wish if Tarantino ever descides to direct a superhero movie, and really he should try something new like that. His war movie, while overlong (a word that best describes his work), was a lot of fun. Now he needs to find some genre where he can’t rely on his copious profanity to tell a story. A superhero movie or a giant monster flick would be good ways to go.

  • PB210

    Good thing that Marvel kept its business partners on a short leash.

    By contrast, the Chicago Herald Tribune, did not specify a period of time for Warren Beatty to make a follow-up Dick Tracy film, and his lawyers have managed to keep the film rights to Dick Tracy for him, twenty years later. Considering its current problems, the CHT would definitely want those rights abck.

    Warner Brothers made a similar foolish mistake with the Salkinds and Superman. They owned Superman, but had no interest in ever making a Superman film in the 1970’s. Of course, one day, a man named Salkind saw a billboard for a Zorro film and decided “Hey, why not a Superman film?” and approached Warner Bros. The Salkinds received 25 years of control of live-action adaptations of the Superman property. After Superman III, when Reeve decided to disassociate himself from the role, the Salkinds started on Supergirl. When Warner Bros. eventually refused to distribute the 1984 Supergirl film, the film flopped and the Salkinds grew less enthusiastic for Superman films. One day, they met Golan and Globus at Cannon, and decided to sub-lease their control of Superman and well….you now what happened. Warner Bros. gave Cannon $40 million for Superman IV:QFP, but only $17 million went to Superman IV. Then, Superman would not return for almost twenty years.

  • Oh, yeah, if he could reign himself in, I always said he could make a dynamite Luke Cage movie. You’d want it to be PG, though–Cage’s favorite saying should remain “Sweet Christmas!”–so yes, he’d have to get off the profanity crutch, and also not make anything more than around 90 minutes long. He definitely has the chops, though, if he could discipline himself.

  • tim

    ryan reynolds would be perfect for ghost rider.

    kidding, of course. but they seem to want him in everything else.
    I also didn’t think ghost rider was that bad. nic cage was horrible, but what movie hasn’t he been horrible in lately? marvel should sit on the property for a few years. maybe make it as one of those compuanimated features. then reboot it. otherwise they’ll run into the same problem the norton hulk movie did. people had too many bad, fresh memories of ang lee’s hulk.
    is anyone else absolutely dreading the spiderman reboot?

  • Toby Clark

    “is anyone else absolutely dreading the spiderman reboot?”

    Hell yeah. No one will be able to play Spider-Man as perfectly as Tobey Maguire or Christopher Daniel Barnes.

    The worst part is that they canned Sam Raimi because he couldn’t meet their release date. Having done that, they hired a new guy and then pushed back the release date. *headdesk*

  • I don’t know. I think Ryan Reynolds would be perfect for Spider-Man.

  • Reed

    Ryan Reynolds, for all his flaws, is a perfect Deadpool. Of course, I hate Deadpool and have no idea why he is a popular character.

    Here’s the thing about Ghost Rider to me; the character is 95% visuals and 5% story. Therefore, I loved the movie. Loved it. Could they have done more? Of course they could have. But the movie had the visuals, and that’s all I really wanted. I have read all of the Ghost Rider stories from the 70’s. I read them in the 70’s and I re-read them in the last 5 years when Marvel started publishing their wonderful Essentials collections. I even bought the DVD with every issue of Ghost Rider in pdf format. I don’t think that the vast majority of GR stories are very good. What I love and remember about the best of them, even from 30 years ago, are some wonderful visual set pieces.

    I will throw my support for an animated run. I do not think that they would be able to keep the tone where I like it though; dark, but with a strong line of hope and good triumphing over evil. Ghost Rider is too easy a character to do completely dark.

  • To be fair, Ryan is also perfect for the Wally West version of the Flash, who is also a loudmouth schmuck sort of character. His names been bruited in connection with the part for a while now. Instead, he’ll be Hal Jordan in the Green Lantern movie, which means (I’m sure) that the character will be tailored to the actor, which means the movie won’t be about Hal Jordan at all.

  • Petoht

    I thought they canned Raimi because he wanted the villain to be Vulture.