The role of comic book creators in the live-action adaptations of their work has been in the headlines for all the wrong reasons recently, with Ed Brubaker admitting that seeing trailer for The Falcon and the Winter Soldier made him feel sick, while Marvel took legal action against the estates of several legendary figures including Stan Lee to try and keep hold of the rights to their characters.
One name that’s been coming up an awful lot lately in the relentless churn of the rumor mill is Ghost Rider, with various speculative reports claiming that Nicolas Cage, Keanu Reeves, Norman Reedus or Gabriel Luna could be playing the Spirit of Vengeance in a feature film or TV show that’ll hit either theaters, Disney Plus or Hulu and may or may not connect to a Midnight Sons event.
In short; we don’t know for sure, and co-creator Roy Thomas admitted in an interview with ComicBook that he’s not exactly in the loop, although he respects the circumstances of how Marvel Studios deals with its vast library of superheroes.
“No, Ghost Rider, like Secret Wars, for that matter, as I’m sure Jim Shooter agrees, belongs to Marvel under the work-for-hire circumstances under which we developed those concepts. It’d be nice to be consulted about characters we’ve created or co-created, but Marvel’s under no obligation to do so. You’d have to ask Marvel why they did so in the case of Secret Wars. But Ghost Rider? I’ve never been given nor asked for any specific credit or money for Ghost Rider, to the best of my knowledge. I’m happy with my arrangements with Marvel on many other concepts I co-created or developed, however, and have no quarrel regarding the character.”
The rights to Ghost Rider have been in Kevin Feige’s lap for years now, but apart from Luna’s Robbie Reyes appearing in Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. before seeing his proposed spinoff series canceled, he hasn’t really been anywhere close to top of the producer’s priority list.
