In a candid retrospective with Yahoo Movies, Nicolas Cage has revealed his desire to see an R-rated Ghost Rider film burst into life at Marvel Studios.
This is by no means the first time that Cage has gone on record about an adult-oriented spin on Johnny Blaze (or Robbie Reyes, perhaps?), but the actor certainly makes a good case for Ghost Rider to receive the R-rated treatment a la Deadpool and Logan.
Not only will it open up the darker corners of the character’s lore, but it’ll also allow the Powers That Be to venture into demonic territory – similar to the upcoming Spawn reboot from Jamie Foxx and writer-director Todd McFarlane – and deliver a comic book movie that’s decidedly different from its PG-13 peers.
Said Cage:
Had Ghost Rider been made in [the] R-rated format, the way they had the guts to do with Deadpool, and they did it again today, I’m fairly certain it would be enormously successful. Having said that, I still think the movies were a hit. People don’t look at the subsidiary outlets, like DVD and streaming and whatnot. When you look at what Mark Neveldine and Brian Taylor did [on ‘Spirit of Vengeance’] for $50 million, and they got a $250 million return, you begin to see the genius of the sequel.
“Enormously successful” are not two words one would associate with Nicolas Cage’s rendition of the famous Ghost Rider, but the actor is still adamant that the movies were successful in the long run. Which is to say that DVD sales and streaming helped recoup some of the film’s budget.
Cage continued by elaborating on why his Ghost Rider movies missed the mark somewhat by handling the property with kid gloves.
The problem is, it’s very hard to take a family of children to a movie — and they made it a PG-13 movie — about a superhero who, oh, by the way, also happens to have sold his soul to Satan. [Not the] most commercial concept or vehicle. But it certainly is the most interesting, and the most thought-provoking. I think if you look back on the movies today, they age well.
But what say you? Is it high time for Ghost Rider to receive the R-rated adaptation he arguably deserves? You can, as always, drop your thoughts below.