Stringer Bell & Nic Cage ride bikes in Ghost Rider 2


Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance opens February 2012, and Sony has just released the first batch of publicity stills. I feel like if you polled a diverse cross section of adults on whether making a sequel to Ghost Rider is a terrible idea, that would be about as close as you could come to a perfect consensus. And yet, with Crank‘s Neveldine and Taylor behind the cameras and Nic Cage back as the lead, there could be a perfect storm of pure batsh*ttery brewing that connoisseurs of ridiculosity like myself would be loathe to miss. Certainly, at the least, it’s an early favorite for Armond White’s favorite movie of 2012. You may recall that he once said of Neveldine and Taylor: “Neveldine-Taylor stand so lonely on the culture’s edge that their au courant ingenuity seems absolutely avant-garde when compared to standard box-office formula.” Personally I find his fin de siecle Manichean verisimilitude somewhat disquieting, but I can’t say I disagree.

Co-director Brian Taylor offered a reminder of their star’s collaborative approach: “Nic trusts us. He was actually one of the guys we wanted for Crank, but we was out of our price range. Now we’ve got him and he’s absolutely fearless. You invite him to go there, he’ll go there. He just needs to be invited – like a vampire.” [From Empire‘s set visit]

They wanted Nic Cage, and ended up with Jason Statham as a consolation prize. I… I’m having a hard time processing that. I may have to go lie down for a few minutes.

As Johnny Blaze hides out in Eastern Europe, he is called upon to stop the devil, who is trying to take human form. [Synopsis, via IMDB]

See, now that’s the problem I always have with these “the devil comes back” demonic possession-type movies. So the devil is back on Earth and you kill him. Then what? What’s the end game there? He goes to double hell? Do you trap his spirit in a flapjack and feed it to a llama? It just doesn’t seem like the stakes are very high when the bad guy is immortal and started the movie in hell. But, and I realize this is neither here nor there, I would enjoy seeing a pigeon deflect off Nic Cage’s massive skull as he rides really fast on a motorcycle. Just spitballin’ here.
[pics via Empire]
And just for old time’s sake…

Oh man. Nic Cage is going to release the pigs so hard in this.

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