Ghost Rider rides again: Before Ryan Gosling, there was Nic Cage and Agents of SHIELD in the MCU

[#item_full_content] [[{“value”:”The character of Ghost Rider was introduced in 1972 in the pages of Marvel Comics, and he’s gone through more than half a dozen incarnations in the decades since.
He’s also made the jump to live action a few times — most notably in a series of pre-MCU dark superhero films starring Nicolas Cage in 2007 and 2011, back when Sony owned the rights to the character (of course, Sony still maintains the rights to Spider-Man, with Tom Holland’s wall-crawler in the MCU as part of a shared rights deal).
But now? Marvel Studios is betting on the Spirit of Vengeance once again, announcing this past weekend at San Diego Comic-Con (SDCC) the studio has tapped A-lister Ryan Gosling (Project Hail Mary, The Fall Guy) and director Shawn Levy (Deadpool & Wolverine, Free Guy) to team-up for a new, live action Ghost Rider film slated to open in theaters in 2028.
Pumped for Gosling’s Ghost Rider movie? Me, too! Subscribe to Static on the TV and let’s geek out about it.
Subscribe
For those looking at the Marvel Cinematic Universe master calendar, that puts this 2028 project after the events of 2027’s big Avengers: Secret Wars film, which (if the comic is any indication) will make for a fairly substantial reordering of the MCU. In the comics, the Secret Wars event basically served as a soft reboot of the mainline Marvel Comics universe.
Most likely? The big Secret Wars finale will mean much the same for the live action version of the Marvel universe, and now we know that Gosling’s Ghost Rider project will be among the first big screen installments rolling out in that new normal.
Ryan Gosling and Shawn Levy’s Ghost Rider
It’s an interesting and surprising project for Marvel to green light, especially with more obvious films like an X-Men reboot were more in line with what fans were expecting from the big Hall H panel. Which, as Marvel head honcho Kevin Feige explains it, the timing was also influenced specifically by Gosling’s interest in playing the character.
Feige revealed that Gosling actually approached Marvel with a “specific vision” for the character, which played a role in the studio’s decision to green-light the film at this juncture (Gosling is a major star, after all, and pairing him with Levy feels like a home run).
At this point, we don’t know anything regarding the approach Gosling/Levy will take to Ghost Rider. Will it be PG-13 or R-rated? Levy did direct the R-rated Deadpool & Wolverine, so tapping him for a darker MCU film with a heavier rating could make sense. But, they could also take this in a broader PG-13 direction, leaning into Gosling’s celebrity factor to try and take the Iron Man path of pairing a lesser-known-ish character (at the time) and big name celebrity in the title role.
The Nic Cage era of Ghost Rider
Development on the first iteration of Ghost Rider in live action started way back in the early 1990s, and kicked around development hell until the early 2000s when Nicolas Cage became attached to play a version of Johnny Blaze in what would become a two-film run of Sony/Marvel dark superhero flicks, which were obviously set outside the continuity of the MCU proper.
Critics basically savaged these movies (released in 2007 and 2011), but they made decent money and have become cult hits in their own right in the years since release.
They benefitted might from Nic Cage’s specific brand of crazy, and though they took some liberty from the comics, featured a great supporting cast including Eva Mendes and Sam Elliot, among others. There was talk of a sequel that would’ve completed the trilogy. But, after the second film lost steam at the box office, Cage (and the studio) lost interest and the franchise was shelved.
And Ghost Rider stayed on the bench (expect for some random animated appearances) until…
Robbie Reyes and Agents of SHIELD
With Marvel having reacquired the rights to Ghost Rider, and with no immediate plans to use the character in the mainline MCU at the time, the TV side of the studio was given some leeway to play with the Ghost Rider mythos, introducing a different incarnation of the Ghost Rider in Robbie Reyes, who was portrayed by Gabriel Luna during a memorable run on the ABC live action Marvel TV series Agents of SHIELD in 2016-2017.
There was an entire arc built around Ghost Rider, with Luna doing an incredible job bringing the character to life. The story also saw other characters, including Phil Coulson himself, briefly embody the spirit of the Ghost Rider (seriously, go watch Agents of SHIELD if you haven’t — the show is awesome).
Funny enough, there were plans for a Hulu streaming Ghost Rider spinoff series starring Luna as Robbie Reyes, which would’ve taken the character from SHIELD off on a fresh, darker adventure. That project was the victim of bad timing, more than anything. It was put into development right around when Marvel Studios was looking to take greater ownership of its TV projects, and a SHIELD spinoff on Hulu just didn’t fit where the strategy was heading (with the studio gearing up to focus on bigger budget Disney Plus shows tied fully into the MCU).
Fans have debated for years whether Agents of SHIELD fits into the MCU, and at this point, it’s safe to say it doesn’t — even though there were crossovers and connective tissue during its run. But, the MCU has moved on since SHIELD ended, and it stands to reason any version of the Ghost Rider story used on SHIELD will be retconned to fit whatever the new strategy is with Gosling’s film. So, consider it another piece of the multiverse, but one still well worth watching.
Ghost Rider has been back on the shelf ever since that spinoff was canned in 2019, which means it’ll be a decade between Robbie Reyes’ run on SHIELD between Gosling’s debut as Ghost Rider in the MCU. Which in the world of comic book TV, is plenty of time to retcon and give some breathing room between adaptations.
Thanks for reading Static on the TV! This post is public so feel free to share it.
Share”}]]  Read More