While we’ve all been calling the new GHOST RIDER film a “reboot” – which I suppose is accurate – it’s still a genuine sequel to the dreadful Mark Steven Johnson movie from 2007. That fact was made clear when we caught wind of a sales synopsis back in February, which clearly stated that the new movie would be following Johnny Blaze place several years after making a deal with the Devil.
And though it’s a sequel, don’t expect it to resemble the Johnson’s film at all – though you probably weren’t going to anyway with the team of Neveldine/Taylor (CRANK) involved. The latter spoke with Movieline just the other day at SXSW and chatted a bit about what we can expect from GHOST RIDER: SPIRIT OF VENGEANCE:
“We basically completely re-envisioned the whole start of the character, and actually had to re-engineer the origin of the Ghost Rider. The whole mythology behind the Ghost Rider that existed in the comic books never really made sense to me, so we sort of had to re-engineer the entire back-story of the Ghost Rider into something new.”
That might just be sacrilege to the comic book faithful out there, don’t you think? Say this for them: these guys aren’t afraid to do their own thing.
Regarding the first film, Taylor had this to say: “We’re not disowning the first movie but this Ghost Rider is an evolved form of the previous Ghost Rider. And the mythology that went behind it is stuff that never got delved into in the first movie, anyway. Like, they don’t talk about who the demon is from when Johnny Blaze becomes the Ghost Rider. We get into that and really get into who that guy is, what his story is, and what makes GR the way that he is.”
Intriguing words. For the full interview, head on over to Movieline. The 3D film comes out next FEBRUARY.
GR2 star Violante Placido