I never thought Mark Steven Johnson's adaptation of Ghost Rider would ever warrant itself a sequel. The movie was an atrocity to say the least, packed with cheesy dialogue, lackluster performances, and extremely choppy editing. Nevertheless,
Ghost Rider: Spirit Of Vengeance will serve as a follow-up to the 2007 film and will have
Nicolas Cage reprise his role as the Hellcycle-riding bounty hunter. More details of the plot have surfaced recently, and if
the early script review is to be believed, Nic Cage's wishes of wanting Ghost Rider 2 to be
less of a Western and more of an international story have possibly come true. Here's what we can deduce from the script :
The sequel is set several years (possibly even a decade) after the first film, and sees Johnny Blaze in a self-imposed exile from the world. (For some reason when you exile yourself from the world you have to move out of the US and go to Europe...or Mexico, its always one of those) The tormented Blaze sees his demonic powers as a curse rather than a means to do justice. The former stuntman is then approached by Moreau, a member of the monastic order of the warrior / archangel Michael. Moreau needs someone capable of protecting a mother and son duo (Nadva and Dannv) who are being hunted by a character named Roarke. Roarke also seems to have specific interests with the Rider, and possess intricate knowledge of the bounty hunter and his "different identities over the centuries."
Production of the sequel begins this fall, and obviously with today's trend, the movie will be released in (post-production conversion) 3D. The people behind the wheel of this project seem to have solid credentials on paper.
David S. Goyer (The Dark Knight, Batman Begins) penned the script for Spirit Of Vengeance whereas Crank duo Mark Neveldine and Brian Taylor will serve as directors for the film. Again, all this sounds great on paper, but studio interference always has the tendency of ruining things - such as this year's Jonah Hex where Neveldine and Taylor's original pitch was dramatically changed by politics.
I'm a fan of the Ghost Rider comics and although I haven't read all the titles, I have some of the better few sitting on my shelf and the mythology of the character is, in short, an extremely interesting subject to explore on film - much more so than we delivered previous. The Ghost Rider mythos is something that runs deep, and needless to say, demands more than just eye-candy to pull-off well. I'm not really excited for this sequel just yet, and I doubt I will be until I have firm reassurances that they are handling the property correctly, but nevertheless, we'll have the updates as they keep coming in so stay tuned.
Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance will be filming in Romania over the next few months.