Here is another interview, the guys certainly seem entertaining to interview! And here is my favourite part, lol!

Speaking of fire -- in regards to the infamous moment in the trailer, whose idea was the whole peeing fire bit?

Taylor: That just came straight from God.

So you're saying it came from Nic, then?

Neveldine & Taylor Ride with "Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance"

http://www.comicbookresources.com/?page=article&id=36552

In 2011, CBR News spoke with "Crank" directors Mark Neveldine and Brian Taylor, picking their brains about their upcoming Sony Pictures release, "Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance." Best known for their over-the-top action vehicles -- most notably, the aforementioned 2006 Jason Statham-helmed movie and its sequel, 2009's "Crank: High Voltage" -- Neveldine and Taylor are no strangers to comic book film adaptations. The duo also penned the screenplay for the DC Comics' "Jonah Hex" and their take on fan-favorite Marvel Comics supernatural stunt motorcyclist Johnny Blaze has been highly anticipated, especially following the lackluster reception of 2007's "Ghost Rider," which also starred Nicolas Cage in the title role.

Neveldine and Taylor have made a name for themselves with an outside-the-box shooting style, high-octane pacing and cliffhanger endings, so we were curious to know about the trademark spin they'd put on their latest movie. They were all too happy to hint at what fans can expect from "Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance" -- from the cast (Cage, Idris Elba and Johnny Whitworth), to the stunts, to the inspiration behind the infamous fiery urination shot that capped the movie's first trailer.

Mark Neveldine: I didn't see the first one.

Brian Taylor: That's pretty much the answer to your question -- it doesn't really relate at all.! It's not really a sequel. It's more like a reboot. It stands on its own, except that it still has Nic, so it's kind of like a prequel.

Neveldine: I'm super-excited about the box office of "Ghost Rider" one.

You guys have a very specific aesthetic in your films…

Taylor: How would you describe that?

I would say POV-style, adrenaline-charged, really stunt-heavy…

Neveldine: Hot and sweaty?

Well, we were talking about a pretty hot and sweaty scene before we started recording -- can we expect something similar in "Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance" to the sex scene in "Crank?"

Neveldine: Let's just say it gets really hot in "Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance."

Taylor: It's a hot, sweaty kind of a movie. Because even in "Crank" we couldn't actually light people on fire.

Speaking of fire -- in regards to the infamous moment in the trailer, whose idea was the whole peeing fire bit?

Taylor: That just came straight from God.

So you're saying it came from Nic, then?

Neveldine: [Laughs] Well, the great thing was that Nic can really pee fire, you just need a lighter.

Taylor: So it was low budget filmmaking. We take advantage of things that actors can really do.

While we're on the topic of actors, how did Idris Elba come to you? Did you guys approach him after seeing him play the supremely badass Stringer Bell in "The Wire?"

Neveldine: Yeah, we saw some of "The Wire," which he was awesome in, and the Guy Ritchie film ["RocknRolla"]. We watched interviews online and just thought, "This guy's really charming, let's get in a room with him." We met him, and he wanted to take this in a direction that he hasn't done yet. I mean, he plays a French, drunk monk. So he had a lot of fun with he. He's an incredibly believable French, drunk monk.

Was that your direction for him? Be a "French, drunk monk?"

Taylor: Yeah, that's pretty much the only direction we had to give him. People are going to be surprised by Idris in this movie. He's a guy who's known for being super contained, cool, grim -- kind of like Jason was before we did crazy things in "Crank," Similarly to that, we think Idris is really going to break out as being an action superstar. He's amazing. He's really charismatic, and all the physical stunt stuff, he can do it as well as anybody. He's probably the biggest surprise for us in the movie.

I remember reading something about Idris. He said you guys made him go on a motorcycle. He hadn't be on one in like 20 years, and you made him do all his own stunts.

Neveldine: It's true.

What about Johnny Whitworth as Blackout? You guys worked with him on "Gamer," so he must've left quite an impression.

Neveldine: Johnny is a crazy insane energy. He's got so much going on in his head. We needed someone who truly was nuts and dangerous, and he was the perfect guy to play Blackout. I mean, Carrigan turns into blackout -- he plays this dual personality.

Taylor: He has personalities he hasn't even met yet.

What can you tell us about this rollerblading technique you guys created on your first film? You took it to another level with this movie -- didn't someone get hooked up to the back of a motorcycle while filming "Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance?"

Taylor: I just held onto the back of motorcycles -- you know, a couple of 'em -- and the back of a truck, and I said, "Idris, look man, I'm holding on to the back of motorcycles -- so you can sit on this thing and drive it."

Neveldine: He was great. He couldn't turn, but outside that, he could drive straight and really fast.

Taylor: And we knew if he crashed, we would just write that into the script and make sure the cameras were rolling.

Just throw some CGI around it, make it a bigger explosion.

Neveldine: And if I crash, there's two of us, so he takes over [points to Taylor] -- it's great. Insurance doesn't mind!

"Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance" hits theaters on February 17, 2012.

-- Edited by Lady Trueheart on Tuesday 24th of January 2012 05:02:57 AM

Here is the link to an interview with Mark Neveldine, that might be interesting:

http://web.orange.co.uk/article/film/ghost-rider-mark-neveldine-interview-38225

Those were great interviews!!! Thanks Lady T, and Lady A!!!

I'm a bit confused. Can our Cagealotiacs enlighten me! I thought Ghost Rider was opening nationwide on February 17th, 2012?? Only, it says that it's opening in 3000 + theaters but it neglects to state nationwide, this according to Box Office Mojo. What does this mean?

Interesting article about Mark Neveldine from his home town newspaper.

http://www.watertowndailytimes.com/article/20120212/CURR04/702129971

Mark Neveldine’s wild “Ghost Rider” ride

Somewhere in northern Romania, a particular bit of inspiration hit Mark B. Neveldine and the rest of the “Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance” film crew.

Appropriately, for the biggest movie in Mr. Neveldine’s career, it involved the largest of his props thus far.

“For the big action scene, our production designer, Kevin Phipps, found this thing called a strip miner,” Mr. Neveldine, a Watertown native and 1991 graduate of Immaculate Heart Central High School said in a phone interview. “It’s like a giant tool that can literally cut mountains in half.”

So they teamed it up with the star of “Ghost Rider,” Nicolas Cage.

“We thought, ‘What if Ghost Rider got on this and transformed the thing into a hell machine?’” Mr. Neveldine said. “How cool would that be?”

Apparently, not cool enough for Mr. Neveldine, who directed the film with his creative partner, Brian Taylor.

“We lit it on fire,” he said.

The result, with just a touch of computer-generated imagery, created quite the scene.

“What a beast that thing was,” Mr. Neveldine said. “There were a lot of treacherous days, but that whole action scene was just a lot of fun. He obliterates hundreds of bad guys with this hell machine. It was pretty awesome.”

Sony Pictures’ “Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance” opens in approximately 3,000 theaters nationwide on Friday.

Mr. Neveldine, 38, is the son and stepson of Jefferson County Legislature Chairwoman Carolyn D. Fitzpatrick and James Fitzpatrick, Watertown, and son of Thomas B. Neveldine, Manlius.

He graduated in 1995 from Hobart College, Geneva, with a bachelor’s degree in psychology and moved to New York City, where he acted before deciding to take up writing and filming movies. He said he did more than 25 stage shows in New York and acted in a few movies. He said as much as he enjoyed acting, “it’s not as important as directing is to me.”

The New York Times reported that Mr. Taylor first worked with Mr. Neveldine when Mr. Taylor hired him as a cameraman in 2001 while shooting an independent film. The following year the two were in the Dominican Republic filming a documentary about the Fuentes cigar family.

Mr. Neveldine made a name for himself in Hollywood with his 2006 feature-film directorial debut, “Crank” in which he teamed up with Mr. Taylor. Its sequel was 2009’s “Crank: High Voltage.” Mr. Neveldine and Mr. Taylor also co-wrote the films, and co-wrote and co-produced “Pathology” (2007), “Gamer” (2009) and “Jonah Hex” (2010). In 2008, Mr. Neveldine married actress Alison M. Lohman, who played Trace in “Gamer.” They own a farm “in the middle of” New York state — Mr. Neveldine declined to identify exaxtly where.

Mr. Neveldine and Mr. Taylor became involved in “Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance” by accident.

“We were working with a Sony executive pitching a completely different project,” Mr. Neveldine said.

The executive asked the pair if they wanted to direct “Spirit of Vengeance,” which had entered preproduction.

“We all just kind of agreed on it quickly,” Mr. Neveldine said. “We had to move fast.”

Mr. Neveldine and Mr. Taylor were soon in Los Angeles to continue preproduction work.

“Before you knew it, we were in Romania and Turkey,” Mr. Neveldine said.

The “Ghost Rider” films are based on the Marvel comic books. Mr. Cage returns to his Johnny Blaze role following 2007’s “Ghost Rider,”directed by Mark Steven Johnson.

Mr. Neveldine, who said he didn’t know anything about the first film, noted the new “Ghost Rider” is not a true sequel.

“Brian knows comic books and video games like the back of his hand,” Mr. Neveldine said. “He said this would be a really cool comic to sort of reinvent and we didn’t have to follow the first movie.”

Mr. Neveldine called the new film “edgier and grittier.” The film was post-converted to 3-D.

Sony Pictures’ synopsis of the new film says: “Johnny (Mr. Cage) is still struggling with his curse as the devil’s bounty hunter — but he may risk everything as he teams up with the leader of a group of rebel monks (Idris Elba) to save a young boy from the devil ... and possibly rid himself of his curse forever.”

The first “Ghost Rider,” Mr. Neveldine said, was shot largely on a soundstage with generous use of a green screen, on which background images are superimposed.

“Brian and I don’t like to shoot on a green screen and don’t like soundstages,” Mr. Neveldine said. “We like to be out in real locations and putting our characters in that environment.”

The environment for “Spirit of Vengeance” included Romania and Turkey. In Turkey, film sites included the lunar-like Cappadocia region. In Romania, they went to the Transylvania region. All the “crashes, castles, caverns and catacombs” in the film are real, without much computer-generated imagery, Mr. Neveldine said.

But some CGI was needed for a film in which the main character’s head turns into a flaming skull. And the Neveldine/Taylor team added some signature touches, such as when Johnny Blaze urinates fire.

Mr. Neveldine said the locals in the countries the film crew visited were incredibly friendly.

“They were really excited,” he said. “Of course, when you come with a big star like Nic Cage, who is kind of loved all over the world, it really helps. They wanted to be part of Hollywood and American cinema.”

Mr. Neveldine called Mr. Cage “an amazing motorcycle rider” who demanded to do his own stunts.

“The first day, we put him on the Yamaha VMax, which is the new ‘Ghost Rider’ bike,” he said. “We were on a road in Turkey, a closed-off highway. He hops on the bike, took off and got the thing up to about 120 in about seven seconds.”

Mr. Neveldine is also no stranger to danger. Promotional shots for the new film show him holding onto a moving motorcycle with one hand and carrying a camera in the other.

“For a lot of my movies, I film on Rollerblades and go up to 50 miles per hour,” he said. “I get a lot of interesting, fun shots and angles.”

He admits it’s dangerous, but he enters such situations well-prepared.

“I grew up in the north country playing hockey my whole life, so I had the skill set going into Hollywood,” he said.

He said he and Mr. Taylor are continually writing scripts and recently have turned their attention to a new “Crank” film. He said Lakeshore Entertainment and Lions Gate Films, which produced and distributed the first two films, have asked about a third “Crank” movie, as has Jason Statham, the films’ star.

“We’ve been talking a lot about ‘Crank 3,’” Mr. Neveldine said. “We narrowed it down to about 10 different ideas. We’re trying to carve out some time to see if we can’t pull it off in the next 18 months and just settle on an idea, write this thing and then go have some fun before we do another giant feature.”

Those “giant features” won’t get in the way of the Neveldine/Taylor creative spirit.

“We have a pretty neat fan base,” Mr. Neveldine said. “We’re sort of these cult film guys who are now moving into mainstream films. But we don’t want to forget about our fans and how we got here.”

More Neveldine and Taylor interviews:

Hollywood Planet - Directors Dish Cage and Ciaran

IAR EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW: DIRECTORS MARK NEVELDINE AND BRIAN TAYLOR TALK ‘GHOST RIDER: SPIRIT OF VENGEANCE,’ ‘CRANK 3’ AND MORE

The “Ghost Rider” directors talk Easter Eggs, inner demons, and the superhero brawl they’d love to film

Yes! such excellent news isn't it! we are talking about the trilogy / ghost rider 3 in in two other threads flo, so it may be best to not confuse things and keep that convo in those topics?!

here is another couple of cool N and T interviews:

"A match made in hell" lol!

http://nerdist.geekchicdaily.com/region/national/story/national/ghost-directors-mark-neveldine-and-brian-taylor-get-cage-y

 

and part 1 of a 2 part Fangoria interview!

http://www.fangoria.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=6609:ghost-rider-in-the-right-spirit-part-one&catid=36:demo-articles&Itemid=56

I'm confoosed, i asked N and T on Twitter ages ago if they wrote the film and they said yes!

WOW how cool would ghost rider 3 be B) if the second one already looks that cool and I haven't even seen it yet ^^

you guys have to read this!

http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/pvjwf/iam_brian_taylor_director_of_ghost_rider_spirit/

Yes, I was struck by Brian Taylors' comments on Nic  in both these last two interviews Lady T.

Lol, well, Crank 1 and 2 have hilarious, outrageous, unforgettable sex scenes that i guess have come to be considered an integral part of the uber hectic elevated N and T package! kind of a shame they had to reign it in for Sony / PG 13 Spirit Of Vengeance that would have been one hell of a prospect!