Fresh from their debut at Comic-con this past weekend, we now get a look at Nicolas Cage and Idris Elba in Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance via Empire magazine. As Hall H attendees saw from the trailer and footage released over the weekend in San Diego, this second Ghost Rider movie isn't anything like the first. As Cage so eloquently stated during the Sony panel presentation, the difference between this dead man from hell and the dead man from hell he portrayed in Drive Angry is that "this is a living dead man and he has to be more dead."
While you wrap you mind around that quote, we can tell you that Spirit of Vengeance will be directed by Mark Neveldine and Brian Taylor, the guys who brought you the two Crank movies as well as Gerard Butler's Gamer. Their balls-to-the-wall filming style combined with a new stand-alone story is just what this sequel needs to shake off the goofy, critically spurned PG-13 version from 2007. Evidence of that can be found when Taylor said in an interview that Ghost Rider is a "pure nightmare. He's not a superhero, he's more like a horror character. He's not interested in saving the world but instead is interested in sucking out your soul."
Unlike the first film, Cage actually gets to play Ghost Rider for a majority of the movie instead of focusing on Johnny Blaze. He said that in trying to figure out how Ghost Rider would move, "I was thinking about trying something really weird, like trying to find a body language from another dimension." Cage said he spent time looking at the movements of different animals including cobras and insects, something that would make a wholly entertaining documentary to say the least.
And for those who will be missing Eva Mendes in this second film, take solace in Elba playing a drunk French monk. If you still have a hankering for eye candy, Violante Placido (The American) appears in the movie.
Take a look at the new Empire pics below and let us know if you're interested in taking a second spin with Ghost Rider.
