You can firebomb his skull, you can light him on fire, and you can polish his bones, but you can’t put the Ghost Rider down. Even with questions about Nicolas Cage returning in the lead, Columbia Pictures is determined to get the sequel to their 2007 surprise hit “Ghost Rider” on the road pronto. To that end, the studio is negotiating with Mark Neveldine and Brian Taylor, the boys behind the “Crank” franchise and “Gamer” to helm the sequel, with Cage also in talks to return, though the studio has made it clear they might go ahead even without him.
The studio hopes to get the whole shebang lit on fire by late fall, or risk the rights turning back over to Marvel Studios. Which basically means, if you ever harbored any secret thoughts of the Spirit of Vengeance duking it out with, say, the Hulk, you can probably forget about it.
David Goyer, Hollywood’s go-to guy for all things comic book and geek-related, recently wrote the story for “Spirit of Vengeance”, but since the “Gamer” boys usually write their own stuff, they’ll probably end up doing their own draft on the comic book sequel. Aside from Cage, no one else is expected back from the first movie, though here’s hoping Neveldine and Taylor realizes the value of Eva Mendes’s, er, talents.
Made for around $110 million back in 2007, the first “Ghost Rider” surprised everyone by doubling that in worldwide grosses.
Mark Neveldine and Brian Taylor, wondering how they’re going to get Eva Mendes back in the sequel.
