For some bizarre reason, I had a nagging desire to watch Ghost Rider last night. Seeing it again reminded me how much it is rooted in religious themes. The whole reason that Johnny Blaze has “superpowers” is because of his deal with the Devil to save his father. Of course, the Devil, being the liar and the cheat he is, heals Johnny’s father of cancer but kills him in a motorcycle stunt wreck the very next day. This leaves Johnny a slave to Satan without really getting what he promised from him. Obviously, making a deal with the Devil is never a good idea, but he was young and dumb and kind of tricked into it. My favorite part of the film is the end, when Johnny tells the Devil that he is going to keep the curse on himself instead of giving it up for some other poor soul to take on. He tells the Devil that he’s going to use the powers the fallen angel gave him against him and battle evil with them. I was reminded that an announcement was made the other day that Columbia has moved forward on a sequel, which will be entitled Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance. After the jump, you can read more.
The studio is already under early negotiations with Crank and Jonah Hex screenwriters Mark Neveldine and Brian Taylor. Nicolas Cage is also in early negotiations to reprise his role as Johnny Blaze / Ghost Rider for the sequel, which isn’t really surprising since he’s shown a great deal of interest in playing the character again in past interviews for other movies. At one point, he stated that he “would like to do a reconceive… I would like to go in a whole other direction, and I think that’s what they’re talking about…I would make it much less of a Western and more of an international story”
According to website Screen Rant, “Nic’s idea is that he’d like to see his torched character go to Europe and team-up with the Catholic Church. He also says there will be no more Western-style horse riders or six-shooters in the next movie.” There’s no word yet to if any other cast members from the first film will be reprising their roles.
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Wow, I can’t believe they’re actually planning a sequel to that movie. I was not a fan of the Ghost Rider movie, but perhaps the sequel will be much better. I hope Nicolas Cage is able to raise the bar.
I talked about the spiritual stuff some in my review, so you might be interested: