retro-the-best....: [New post] Nic Cage on Ghost Rider sequel and a darker Johnny Blaze

Wednesday, December 1, 2010

[New post] Nic Cage on Ghost Rider sequel and a darker Johnny Blaze

Nic Cage on Ghost Rider sequel and a darker Johnny Blaze

dailypop | December 1, 2010 at 5:22 pm | Tags: ghost rider marvel comics, nic cage | Categories: Uncategorized | URL: http://wp.me/p4kUt-28Q

A cult comic book character from Marvel's Bronze Age, Ghost Rider debuted on the big screen in Mark Steven Johnson's (Daredevil) 2007 film. Three years later, he's making a come back, albeit a darker one in Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance.

The comic book character Johnny Blaze created by Roy Thomas & Gary Friedrich and artist Mike Ploog was a troubled youth looking to save his adoptive father from death's door. By making a pact with the Devil, he saved his step-father from cancer only to see him die in a fiery crash. That's what you get when you make deals with the Devil, I guess. To make matters worse, Blaze became the human host for the demon Zartathos, an unruly denizen of Hell who was causing trouble in the underworld. Whenever Blaze was near evil forces during the evening he would transform into a nightmarish vision of Hell as the Ghost Rider and strike vengeance on the wicked.

Starring Nic Cage as Blaze, the character on screen was more of a mixture of Evel Knievel and Elvis Presley. The 2007 movie adapted the comic book fairly closely aside from a few alterations and even name checked the previous Ghost Riders of the old west, Carter Slade. The film was a moderate success but as Nic Cage was such a devoted comic book fan (actually changing his last name after Power Man, Luke Cage), there was always the strong possibility of a sequel.

Via IO9:

How will the next Ghost Rider movie be different, now that the directors of theCrank movies are on board? In our exclusive interview, star Nic Cage tells us to expect crazy stunts, sarcasm, and a darker, weirder Johnny Blaze.

We're very excited for the new Ghost Rider film, where will the audience find (your character) Johnny Blaze in the next film?

He's become a lot more sarcastic, now that his head has been ignited. Unlike the first one where he was trying to keep it at bay. Now he's been living with the Ghost Rider for some time, there's a lot more irony with the character. His outlook isn't as quite naive as it once was. And also I'm very excited about what we're getting up to with Mark Neveldine and Brian Taylor [the directors], they are very original in terms of their film making. Mark is doing things I've never seen a director do before — filming on roller blades, hanging on wires — it's like a stunt man, camera operator and director all in one. Brian Taylor is really so knowledgeable about film. In the same conversation, in the same sentence even, I can talk about Michael Powell's Peeping Tom and then go into Ishirô Honda's The War of the Gargantuas. He's the reason why I'm playing the Ghost Rider as well. He really was an advocate of that, and inspired me to take that on. As a result of that we're getting into some really abstract stuff that I think will mess with people's minds. I'm really looking forward to it.

Those two are exceptionally original. How else are they changing the tone of the first film, is it even similar to the original?

It is a completely different film. The first one, which I won't denigrate — I liked the first one, but it was almost like a fairy tale. Almost like a Disney fairy tale interpretation of Faust. This one is completely re-conceived, it's not even connected to the first one, it's a different origin sequence. But I think it will be a brand new experience. It has more adrenaline involved in the film making process itself, and in the movie when you see it. Again, I think the stuff we're able to get into with Ghost Rider is going to be a lot more abstract and not like anything you've seen before. So I'm very excited by it.

I've read that you're a big manga and comic book fan, especially with your work in Astro Boy and Ghost Rider. What comics are you reading right now?

I was getting back into reading some of the Man-Thing, which was something that Stan Lee made in the 70s. It became kind of a classic monster character that I liked. [I'm] trying to go back and look at some of the old comics [Jack] Kirby comics like The Demon. There's another one, his interpretation of 2001 was interesting, real creative stuff. Also Marvel's interpretation of Dracula, and I'm looking through the old Ghost Riders.