| Ghost Rider | |
|---|---|
 Theatrical release poster | |
| Directed by | Mark Steven Johnson |
| Screenplay by | Mark Steven Johnson |
| Based on | |
| Produced by |
|
| Starring | |
| Cinematography | Russell Boyd |
| Edited by | Richard Francis-Bruce |
| Music by | Christopher Young |
Production companies | |
| Distributed by | Sony Pictures Releasing[1] |
Release dates |
|
Running time | 110 minutes[5] |
| Country | United States[6][1] |
| Language | English |
| Budget | $110-120 million[7][8] |
| Box office | $228.7 million[7][8] |
Ghost Rider is a 2007 Americansuperhero film written and directed byMark Steven Johnson. Based on theMarvel Comics characterof the same name, it was produced byColumbia Pictures in association withMarvel Entertainment,Crystal Sky Pictures, andRelativity Media, and distributed bySony Pictures Releasing. The film starsNicolas Cage asthe titular character, withEva Mendes,Wes Bentley,Sam Elliott,Donal Logue,Matt Long, andPeter Fonda in supporting roles. The film follows Johnny Blaze, a motorcycle stuntman who sells his soul and becomes the Ghost Rider, a bounty hunter of evil demons.
Ghost Rider was released on February 16, 2007, in the United States. The film was met with negative reviews from critics and grossed $228.7 million worldwide against a $110 million budget.Ghost Rider was released onDVD,Blu-ray andUMD on June 12, 2007. A sequel, titledGhost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance, was released on February 17, 2012, with Cage reprising his role.
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The demonMephisto sends his bounty hunter, theGhost Rider, to retrieve the contract of San Venganza for control of a thousand dark souls. Seeing that the agreement would give Mephistopheles the power to bring hell on Earth, the Rider refuses and escapes with it. In 1986, Mephistopheles reaches out to 17-year-oldJohnny Blaze, offering to cure his father's cancer in exchange for Johnny's soul. The next morning, Johnny awakens to discover the cancer cured, but his father dies later from burns sustained in a stunt accident. Johnny accuses Mephistopheles of causing his father's death, but Mephistopheles considers his side of the contract fulfilled and promises to see Johnny again as Mephistopheles takes Johnny's soul. Instead of running away with his girlfriend, Roxanne Simpson as planned, Johnny just rode off.
In the present, Johnny has become a famous motorcycle stuntman. He survives a near-fatal crash after leaping over a field of semi trucks. Later he runs into his ex-girlfriend, Roxanne, now a news reporter, just before he lands a motorcycle stunt where he clears a football field overblackhawk helicopters while their blade rotors were spinning. He convinces her to attend a dinner date. Meanwhile, Mephistopheles' sonBlackheart comes to Earth and seeks aid from the Hidden (three fallen angels bonded with the elements of air, earth, and water) to find the lost contract of San Venganza.
Mephistopheles makes Johnny the new Ghost Rider and offers to return his soul if he defeats Blackheart. Johnny transforms into the Ghost Rider, his flesh burning off his skeleton, and kills the earth angel Gressil. He then uses the Penance Stare, a power that causes mortals to feel all the pain they have caused others, on a street thug, searing his soul. The next day, he meets a man called theCaretaker, who knows about the Ghost Rider's history. He assures Johnny that what happened was real and will happen again, especially at night, when he is near an evil soul.
Johnny leaves to find Roxanne, who is reporting the previous night's events on the news. At home, Johnny tries to control his firepower. Roxanne, upset about being stood up, comes to visit before leaving town, and Johnny reveals himself as the Devil's bounty hunter. Unconvinced, she walks away in disbelief. Johnny winds up in prison for murders Blackheart committed due to his license plate being discovered at a crime scene, in which Johnny kills several convicts and the air angel Abigor and escapes from the police. He returns to the Caretaker, who tells him of his predecessorCarter Slade, aTexas Ranger who hid the contract of San Venganza. At home, Johnny discovers that Blackheart has killed his friend Mack and taken Roxanne hostage, intending to kill her if Johnny does not deliver the contract. Johnny tries to use the Penance Stare on Blackheart, but it proves ineffective as Blackheart has no soul. Blackheart then orders Johnny to retrieve the contract and bring it to him in San Venganza.
Johnny returns to the Caretaker, demanding the contract to save Roxanne. The Caretaker reveals that it is hidden inside a spade, telling Johnny that he is stronger than his predecessors because he sold his soul for love rather than greed, before giving it to him. The Caretaker then transforms with Blaze, revealing that he is actually Carter Slade. Slade then leads Johnny to San Venganza and gives him alever-action shotgun before bidding him farewell and having finally shaken off the curse, fading into dust as he rides away.
After killing the water angel Wallow, Johnny gives Blackheart the contract. He transforms into the Ghost Rider to subdue Blackheart, but is rendered powerless at sunrise. Using the contract to absorb the thousand souls, Blackheart, now calling himself Legion, attempts to finish Johnny off, but is distracted when Roxanne uses Johnny's shotgun to separate them. Johnny shoots Blackheart with the gun, holding it in the shadows to allow him to enhance it with his power. Keeping his own body in shadow, he transforms again and uses his Penance Stare to render Blackheart catatonic by burning all the corrupt souls within him. Mephistopheles appears and declares the contract is complete, offering to take back the curse of the Ghost Rider. Determined not to let anyone else make another deal, Johnny declines, declaring that he will use his power against the demon and against all harm that comes to the innocent. Infuriated, Mephistopheles vows to make Johnny pay and disappears with Blackheart's body. Roxanne tells Johnny that he has his second chance and kisses him. Johnny rides away on his motorcycle, preparing for his new life as the Ghost Rider.
Additional cast members includeBrett Cullen as Barton Blaze, Johnny Blaze's deceased father, and former motorcycle stuntman;David Roberts as Captain Jack Dolan, police captain;Laurence Breuls as Gressil, a Fallen Angel with earth-based powers, and one of Blackheart's minions;Daniel Frederiksen as Wallow, a Fallen Angel with water-based powers, and one of Blackheart's minions;Mathew Wilkinson as Abigor, a Fallen Angel with wind-based powers, and one of Blackheart's minions;Rebel Wilson as a goth girl in the alley whom Johnny saved from a mugger;Jessica Napier as a Broken Spoke waitress;Ling-Hsueh Tang as a news reporter;Eddie Baroo as Motorcycle gang member; andMarty Fields as a surveillance guard.
Marvel began development forGhost Rider as early as 1992 and were in discussions with potential producers to sell the rights to.[9] In 1997,Gale Anne Hurd was listed as producer, withJonathan Hensleigh attached to write the script.[10]David S. Goyer developed a script and in May 2000, Marvel announced an agreement with Crystal Sky Entertainment to filmGhost Rider with actorJon Voight attached as a producer.[11] Production was scheduled to start in early 2001 with a budget of $75 million andJohnny Depp expressing interest in the lead role.[12] The following August,Dimension Films joined Crystal Sky to co-finance the film, which would be directed byStephen Norrington.[13] ProducerAvi Arad approachedEric Bana on the possibility of playing Ghost Rider, but opted to cast him inHulk instead.[14] In June 2001, actor and Ghost Rider fanNicolas Cage entered talks to be cast into the lead role,[15] after having found out about Depp being a possibility for the role and contacted the director to express his own interest.[16] Norrington would drop out within a few months due his commitment toTick Tock[17] and Cage eventually left the project as well. By May 2002,Columbia Pictures sought to acquire rights toGhost Rider inturnaround from Dimension Films following their success withSpider-Man.[18] They broughtShane Salerno to rewrite Goyer's script.[19]
In April 2003, under Columbia Pictures, directorMark Steven Johnson took over the helm forGhost Rider with Cage returning for the lead role. Johnson, rewriting Salerno's script, was set to begin production ofGhost Rider in late 2003 or early 2004,[20] but it was delayed to October. Cage took a temporary leave of absence to filmThe Weather Man.Ghost Rider production was slated to tentatively begin in May or June 2004.[21] Despite the previous listed actors, Johnson claimed that Cage was the only actor they considered for the role of Johnny Blaze.[22] Cage said that the film should beRated R.[23]
Ghost Rider had again been delayed to begin in late 2004, but the lack of a workable script continued to delay production.[24] Johnson revealed that the original draft featured the characterScarecrow as the main villain, but the studio convinced him to change it toBlackheart so that audiences did not confuse him for theDC character of the same name.[22] ActorWes Bentley was cast as Blackheart, having been introduced to Johnson byColin Farrell, who had worked with the director inDaredevil.[25] ActressEva Mendes was also cast opposite Cage asRoxanne Simpson.[26]
Ghost Rider commenced filming in Australia at theMelbourne Docklands film studios on February 14, 2005.[27] In March, actorPeter Fonda (who starred inEasy Rider) was cast as the villainMephistopheles.[28] Johnson originally planned to film before an audience at theDocklands Stadium, but instead opted to create a crowd using computer-generated imagery.[29] The director also chose to film in the motorcycle district ofMelbourne.[30] By June 2005, principal photography had been completed forGhost Rider,[31] which was set for a mid-2006 release.[32]
In April 2006, the cast and crew performed last-minute reshoots inVancouver.[33]
Instead of a "hard drinking and smoking bad ass" Johnny Blaze, Nicolas Cage decided to give him more depth: "I'm playing him more as someone who... made this deal and he's trying to avoid confronting it, anything he can do to keep it away from him". Cage also explained that Blaze's stunt riding was a form of escape and a way to keep him connected to his deceased father, who taught him to ride. Cage rode aBuell motorcycle for Blaze's stunt cycle, and a heavily customized hardtail chopper named "Grace" which transforms into the "Hell Cycle".[34] The Hell Cycle's wheels, made of pure flames in the comics, were changed to be solid tires covered in flames in order to give the motorcycle more weight onscreen.[35]
The film's visual effects supervisor,Kevin Mack, and the visual effects team atSony Pictures Imageworks handled the difficult task of creating computer-generated fire on a shot-by-shot basis.[36] Ghost Rider'sskull flames were designed to become smaller and blue to display any emotion other than rage.[35] Kevin's Team at Imageworks also created computer-generated motorcycles, chains, water, black goo, dementors and buildings. To pull off such effects as the living morph where the hardtail chopper ("Grace") comes alive to become the "Hell Cycle", Sony enlisted teams of animators, models, effects artists, lighters & "Flame" artists. The department supervisors for these teams at Imageworks included Kevin Hudson, Brian Steiner, JD Cowels, Marco Marenghi, Joe Spadaro, Joanie Karnowski, Vincent Serritella & Patrick Witting. Patrick's team bore the brunt of the work as they created the fire using a custom pipeline that automated the set up starting with Maya animated geometry driving Maya Fluids, imported into Houdini and then rendered & composited on top of the live action plates. Patrick and his team set up the fire process and much of the front end automation was set up by Scott Palleiko and Joe Spadaro. The fire was then tweaked and manipulated to look and move believably by Patrick's eleven man Houdini effects team. All of this was enabled by effects producers Daniel Kuehn and the Digital Effects Supervisor Kee-Suk 'Ken' Hahn.
The digital version of the hell cycle was modeled in detail by Kevin Hudson and based on the practical prop used in the film, it included animatable skeletal hands that came alive to wrap the gas tank during the supernatural transformation scene. The transformation scene was animated by Max Tyrie and finalized by Joe Spadaro. Each part of the "Grace" geometry had to match up and morph with a piece of geometry on the "Hell Cycle".
Ghost Rider's voice was manipulated by sound designerDane Davis, who won anAcademy Award for Sound Editing forThe Matrix. Davis filtered Cage's line readings through three different kinds of animal growls that were played backwards and covered separate frequencies. Davis then amplified the dialogue through a mechanical volumizer. Director Johnson described the sound as a "deep, demonic, mechanical lion's roar".[37]
| Ghost Rider: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Film score by | ||||
| Released | February 13, 2007 | |||
| Recorded | 2006 | |||
| Genre | Film score,orchestral | |||
| Length | 56:33 | |||
| Label | Varèse Sarabande | |||
| Christopher Young chronology | ||||
| ||||
Christopher Young composedGhost Rider score. In addition,Spiderbait, a band that Johnson befriended during filming in Australia,[36] performed a cover of "Ghost Riders in the Sky" for the end credits.[38]
All tracks are written byChristopher Young.
| No. | Title | Length |
|---|---|---|
| 1. | "Ghost Rider" | 3:16 |
| 2. | "Blackheart Beat" | 3:06 |
| 3. | "Artistry in Death" | 4:13 |
| 4. | "A Thing for Karen Carpenter" | 2:01 |
| 5. | "Cemetery Dance" | 5:31 |
| 6. | "More Sinister Than Popcorn" | 5:40 |
| 7. | "No Way to Wisdom" | 2:15 |
| 8. | "Chain Chariot" | 6:18 |
| 9. | "Santa Sardonicus" | 3:36 |
| 10. | "Penance Stare" | 5:26 |
| 11. | "San Venganza" | 3:22 |
| 12. | "Blood Signature" | 2:08 |
| 13. | "Serenade to a Daredevil's Devil" | 1:53 |
| 14. | "Nebuchadnezzar Phase" | 5:52 |
| 15. | "The West Was Built on Legends" | 3:59 |
| Total length: | 56:33 | |
In May 2005,Sony Pictures launched the official website forGhost Rider.[39] The following July, the studio presented aGhost Rider panel atSan Diego Comic-Con and screened a teaser for the audience.[35] The teaser, which did not have finalized footage of the film, eventually leaked online.[40] In the same month, Majesco Entertainment Company announced its deal with Marvel to acquire worldwide rights to produce the video gameGhost Rider for thePS2,PSP, andGame Boy Advance consoles.[41] In December, the studio presented a first glimpse of Ghost Rider in a ten-second footage piece on the official site.[42] In April 2006,Sideshow Collectibles announced the sale of a Ghost Ridermaquette based on the concept art of the film.[43] The following May, domestic and international teaser trailers forGhost Rider were launched atApple Inc.[44] The Ghost Rider was also featured in a commercial for Jackson Hewitt Tax Services in which the character presented his income tax forms to a clerk for processing to receive a quick refund check.
Ghost Rider was originally scheduled to release on August 4, 2006,[45] but the date was moved three weeks earlier to July 14.[46] Sony changed the film's release date once more to February 16, 2007, to help relieve the studio's crowded 2006 calendar.[47]
Sony Pictures Home Entertainment released the film on June 12, 2007, as a single-disc Theatrical CutDVD, two-discExtended Cut DVD,Blu-ray Disc, andUMD.[48] Special features on the Extended Cut DVD include twocommentary tracks, a comic book history feature, and a making of the film featurette.[49]
Ghost Rider was commercially released in theUnited States on February 16, 2007. The film grossed $15,420,123 on its opening day,[50] while earning $45,388,836 for its opening weekend. The film earned $52,022,908 over the four-dayPresident's Day weekend, with a per-theater average of $US 14,374 in 3,619 theaters.[51] This made it the highest President's Day opening weekend at the time, surpassing the three-day record held byDaredevil and the four-day record held by50 First Dates simultaneously.[52] The film would go on to hold these records until 2010 whenValentine's Day took them.[53] It went on to achieve the highest opening weekend for a Nicholas Cage film, replacingNational Treasure.[54] Additionally, it reached the number one spot at the box office in its first weekend, beating outNorbit,Bridge to Terabithia,Music and Lyrics,Daddy's Little Girls andBreach.[55] For its second weekend, the film collected $20 million, outgrossingThe Number 23 andReno 911!: Miami to stay in first place.[56] The film's total earnings were $228,738,393 worldwide of which $115,802,596 was from North America.[7]
On thereview aggregator websiteRotten Tomatoes, 28% of 137 critics' reviews are positive, with an average rating of 4.2/10. The website's consensus reads: "Ghost Rider is a sour mix of morose, glum histrionics amidst jokey puns and hammy dialogue."[57]Metacritic, which uses aweighted average, assigned the film a score of 35 out of 100, based on 20 critics, indicating "generally unfavorable" reviews.[58] Audiences polled byCinemaScore gave it a grade "B".[59]
Michael Ordoña of theLos Angeles Times and Jeannette Catsoulis of theNew York Times expressed disappointment in the film. Ordoña said, "For a comic book with a rebel spirit, the adaptation feels obediently conventional", and Catsoulis said Johnny Blaze is "more funny than frightening".[60][61] In a mixed review, Scott Foundas ofLA Weekly explained that "instead of a buoyant, imaginative superhero movie on the order ofSam Raimi'sSpider-Man films orBryan Singer'sSuperman Returns, we get a lumbering, paint-by-numbers origin story".[62] Robert Koehler ofVariety stated that "Ghost Rider would have been most fun had it been made for a dime by a Roger Corman-type outfit as a quickie Gothic adventure spinningZane Grey,Faust andEvel Knievel".[63]
Eric Alt of theChicago Tribune praised the computer-generated effects of the film, though he criticized the film overall as a "clumsy, lifeless outing".[64]
The film was nominated for oneRazzie Award for Nicolas Cage asGolden Raspberry Award for Worst Actor.[65] The film was also nominated forBest Horror Film at theSaturn Awards.[66]
A sequel, entitledSpirit of Vengeance, was released on February 17, 2012. Cage reprised his role as Johnny Blaze and also portrayed Johnny Blaze in his Ghost Rider form.Crank filmmakersMark Neveldine and Brian Taylor directed the film. The film received worse reviews than its predecessor, but was still a financial success.
When asked about a potential third film, Cage said that it could happen, but without his involvement.[67] In 2013 the rights reverted toMarvel Studios,[68] effectively cancelling plans for a third film. TheRobbie Reyes version of the Ghost Rider later appeared in the TV seriesAgents of S.H.I.E.L.D., set in theMarvel Cinematic Universe.
Craig Ferguson, former host ofThe Late Late Show, has mentioned that his robot skeleton sidekickGeoff Peterson was inspired by Cage's portrayal of Ghost Rider in this film and its sequel.[69]
