After being rumored to be attached to the role for over a year, we finally got confirmation that Ryan Gosling will play Ghost Rider in a long-awaited MCU reboot earlier this year.
Though he will likely be a part of the planned Midnight Sons movie, the Project Hail Mary star will debut as the flame-headed Spirit of Vengeance in a new solo Ghost Rider project from director Shawn Levy (Deadpool and Wolverine, Star Wars: Starfighter), and the movie will ride into theaters in 2028.
Starfighter writer Jonathan Tropper has been enlisted to pen the script, and we recently got word that Heated Rivalry star Connor Storrie is in talks to play the undisclosed villain.
We still don't know exactly what Marvel Studios has planned for this reboot, but cinematographer Linus Sandgren -- who has worked on the likes of Dune: Part Three, La La Land, and Babylon -- told Variety that he intends to make the movie feel “grounded and emotional" at the Hamilton Behind the Camera Awards.
“I haven’t been involved in the world of comic books and graphic novels, but hopefully I bring some sensitivity to the emotions of this story. It could be very dramatic and fun.”
Writer Benjamin Percy, who worked on Marvel’s Ghost Rider comic series between 2022 and 2023, believes the movie should fully embrace "R-rated horror."
“Let me say that as a horror head, this is my time, right? I’m in my zone right now," he told ComicBook.com recently. "I’m sure whatever Marvel conjures up is going to be great, but I would lean towards the R-rated horror version of the character and not do the standard cape and spandex, MCU type, which can be very effective if you’re doing a Doomsday storyline, or an X-Men storyline. But in this case, I would really lean into, like, Johnny pulling hot chains out of his mouth, Hellraiser style, or his skin melting right off of him with a halo of flames around. Like, give us the body horror. Give us a really hellish iteration of Ghost Rider on the screen.”
Of course, MCU movies are almost always PG-13, but the recent Deadpool and Wolverine was an exception, and ended up becoming Marvel/Disney's most profitable film in quite some time. With this in mind, an R-rated Ghost Rider movie is not outside the realm of possibility.
A recent placeholder synopsis for the movie is actually taken from Vol.10 of the Ghost Rider comic book, but it may still confirm that Gosling will play Johnny Blaze.
Several characters have held the Ghost Rider mantle in the comics over the years, including Blaze, Robbie Reyes, Danny Ketch, Alejandra Jones, Michael Badilino, and Kushala. Nicolas Cage played Blaze in two poorly received movies, and more recently, Gabriel Luna portrayed Reyes in the now-defunct Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. TV series.
THR's report on Gosling's casting mentioned that he will play Blaze, but this was not disclosed at SDCC, and Kevin Feige declined to clarify which version of the character will be introduced in the movie during a post-panel interview.
“I am going to let Ryan reveal what he wants to reveal, when he wants to reveal it, and what he wanted to reveal today is…he’s playing Ghost Rider. He is a huge fan of the comics; he did come to us particularly with a specific vision, based on some particular comics.”
During a follow-up interview with Empire, Feige revealed that it was Gosling himself who came up with this new "vision" for Ghost Rider.
“It was Gosling who had the vision. It was Gosling who had the pitch that won over Shawn, that had them come and pitch us this idea, which led to us on stage today.”