Even though the first movie wasn’t great, there was still optimism that Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance would be able to clear the low bar set by its predecessor and give the title hero the high-octane outing everyone had been hoping for to begin with.
Gone were the safe and uninspiring stylings of Daredevil director Mark Steven Johnson, to be replaced by Mark Neveldine and Brian Taylor, the dynamic duo responsible for Jason Statham’s phenomenal Crank and even more outlandish High Voltage, two of the cultiest cult classics of the last decade and a half.
Throw in Nicolas Cage going even more unhinged than before, with a significantly smaller budget hypothetically allowing more scope to dial up the insanity, and Spirit of Vengeance looked as though it was going to be a wild ride. At least, that was the case until it released, and the world discovered it was exponentially worse than its relentlessly mediocre forebear.
A 19 percent Rotten Tomatoes score makes it one of the worst-reviewed Marvel Comics adaptations in history, and while he did admit he hasn’t seen the film in its final form, eventual Doctor Strange director Scott Derrickson revealed to The Playlist that he wisely side-stepped the opportunity to take the reins.
“Yeah, I was offered Ghost Rider 2 when I was kind of in director’s jail, and I read the script, and I was like, ‘Well, this probably will end my career if I do this. I just didn’t think that it was something that was going to do particularly well. And I don’t think I ever saw the movie, so no criticism of what they ended up doing in the end, but it just wasn’t for me to do. But yeah, I love that comic. I think there’s a good film in there, for sure.”
As it turns out, Derrickson dodged a bullet, and his foresight ended up working out very well in the long run considering he ended up helming the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s Doctor Strange several years down the line.
