No Cape. No Tights. No Face. But Nicolas Cage Will Fly as Ghost Rider: Spirit Of Vengeance

As an actor, Nicolas Cage has a unparalleled way of bringing the unexpected with his film choices and characters, adding depth and nuance to each role. Perhaps no surprise then that the long time comic book fans’ plans for the ill fated Tim BurtonSuperman project were to play up the alien aspects of the caped superhero, and with crazy hair – a far cry from the slick all american flying man of steel icon we know as Superman – to show that someone who is considered a “weirdo”, “freak” or somehow different, can actually be the hero, and one whose transformation motivation is a compulsion to do good in order to be accepted into the world he finds himself in.
As fate had it, Nicolas Cage never played Clark Kent and his alter ego, later going on record to say that as he was going to turn the character on it’s ear it was the right choice and that the traditional and nostalgic approach was ultimately the Right Way To Go.

Fortunately for us, Nicolas Cage went on to become the man who brought Ghost Rider to the silver screen, an anti-hero super hero, with all the complexity and depth an actor (and his fans) of such sensibilities could relish, uniquely portrayed in the way that only Cage can.

Born in the comic book genre, Johnny Blaze is a man possessed with a demonic spirit who transforms in an excrutiatingly extreme way and, like The Hulk, turns into a physically frightening Monster, but at the same time one who ultimately only commits benevolent and heroic deeds.

From reading the comic book as a child and bringing the character to life the first time around in the 2007 film, and soon to be unleashed on our screens in Ghost Rider: Spirit Of Vengeance, Nicolas Cage was always meant to be the man who cinematically realized the only comic book character who can ‘walk in both worlds’.

The Ghost Rider with it’s bad ass skull iconography is a nightmarish and scary figure, his appearance on the front cover of the latest edition of horror magazineFANGORIA, and on the back cover in a Basil Gogos piece of artwork commissioned by Nicolas Cage himself leaves us in no doubt of his origins, not some far away planet or universe, but straight from the flames of hell:

Cage was always fascinated by how something so scary could also be good, a sentiment echoed recently in an interview with Total Film Magazine:

“I couldn’t get my head around how I was supposed to perceive something like that to be a hero, so I was automatically attracted to that complexity.

“It’s easy to love Superman, it’s easy to love Captain America, but it’s a challenge to love the Ghost Rider. As I got older that carried on into my dramatic work – I’m always looking for flawed characters who have a pathos and a kind of tragedy to them.”

That character depth and pathos was present on the first Ghost Rider film, Cage wanted to play Johnny Blaze – who tragically lost his father, his soul, and in the end, his girl – as a man who was trying to keep the dark forces at bay and desperately trying not to invite the devil in, by listening to the angelic tones of Karen Carpenter and filling his drinking glass with jelly beans, deviating from the comic book character’s chainsmoking, JD swilling ways.

This time around, in upcoming Crank duo Neveldine and Taylor directed Ghost Rider: Spirit Of Vengeance which hits our screens in less than one month, we are promised a more baddass, fire peeing, bullet vomiting, No Cape. No Tights. No Face. Ghost Rider

The anti-hero antithesis of Superman it seems, a fact the above poster from theOfficial Spirit Of Vengeance Twitter page seems to gloriously celebrate. And yet, Johnny Blaze’s curse is in the end a gift, using is power as The Ghost Rider in the first film to avenge the innocent, and as the official synopsis for upcoming Spirit Of Vengeance suggests, our fiery hero is back to face off with the devil and protect a young boy:

Nicolas Cage returns as Johnny Blaze in Columbia Pictures’ and Hyde Park Entertainment’s Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance. In the successor to the worldwide hit Ghost Rider, Johnny – still struggling with his curse as the devil’s bounty hunter – is hiding out in a remote part of Eastern Europe when he is recruited by a secret sect of the church to save a young boy (Fergus Riordan) from the devil (Ciaran Hinds). At first, Johnny is reluctant to embrace the power of the Ghost Rider, but it is the only way to protect the boy – and possibly rid himself of his curse forever.

Here at Cagealot, we believe our favourite actor was born to play Ghost Rider, and that there is no more compelling a comic book character, with as potent powers, on screen; penance staring down, puking bullets and peeing fire at the bad guys.

And….. as if this were not enough…..as this Ghost Rider: Spirit Of Vengeance Behind The Scenes Featurette reveals, Superman he is not, but Nicolas Cage will fly.

He rides again, 17 February 2012. Be there.

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