Marvel.com: Nic Cage did the first Ghost Rider movie and has some familiarity with the character. What was it like joining up with him and taking what he took from the first movie and grafting it onto what you wanted to do?
Mark Neveldine: We gave him an opportunity in this one to play it as a dual role. We didn’t just want him to play Johnny Blaze, we wanted him to play the the demon, we wanted him to play the Ghost Rider. So he created this whole new physical language for that character. It was completely distinct from Johnny Blaze. That was a lot of fun. He’s so passionate about it and so cerebral about it. Talk about controlled chaos, that’s Nicolas. Nicolas thinks about everything that he does, and he’s got a reason for it. An intellectual reason and a poetic reason for every choice that he makes. Once he has all that foundation, that’s when you let him loose. Then it’s just a ramping the knob up. “Oh, let's do this take on 11, Nic. Let’s do this one on 15. Maybe you can modulate this down and do this on nine and half.”
Marvel.com: I know you guys shot most of it over in Romania and Turkey.
What led you to go to those sort of locations?
Brian Taylor: The script was actually set there. We don’t like to shoot a lot on stages, we like to use real locations as much as possible. We prefer to put our characters in real environments [rather] than building sets.
I included that last quote because it's the only thing out of the mouths of this directing duo that didn't sound like a freaking Mountain Dew commercial. Seriously these guys say rad and dude like they're filming C. Thomas Howell volleyball 80's movie,
Side Out. Anyone remember that movie?
But on the positive I am glad that this odd duo have some traditional and grounded beliefs on how to approach the locations of the film. I really do appreciate films going to strange and new for me locations. Something I haven't seen is always a bonus, a feast for my eyes. And how many Hollywood films are shot in Turkey or Romania? Not too many. So, even if the movie isn't "rad" I'll still feel like I got a cheap trip to an exotic land and not some cgi bull crap. I'm looking at you Mark Campbell!
Ghost Rider : Spirit of Vengence is directed by Mark Neveldine and Brian Taylor's starring Nicolas Cage, Ciaran Hinds, Violante Placido, Idris Elba, and Johnny Whitworth.
Ghost Rider hits theaters February 22, 2012.
About The Author:
I am Jay Jayson, one of the greatest writers and researchers to ever grace the comicbookmovie.com community. If there is a story or a picture hiding on the internet I will find it.