Former Marvel Studios CEO and current President of Avi Arad Productions, Avi Arad has producer credits on all of Marvel’s movie-related releases going back to 1998’s Blade, so when he announced on February 9, 2007—one week prior to the release of Ghost Rider on February 16, 2007—that Ghost Rider 2 was going into development there was no reason to doubt that the picture was a “go.”
Further evidence supporting a possible sequel came when the final box office numbers were crunched. While almost universally panned by critics, Ghost Rider grossed $15,420,123 on its opening day and went on to earn $45,388,836 its opening weekend, the biggest opening of 2007 until 300 opened with a weekend gross of $70,885,301. Ghost Rider went on to earn a worldwide total of $224,648,323.
Since that time, however, there has been little heard about
Ghost Rider 2. It was initially thought that a sequel starring
Nicholas Cage would be unlikely due to the actor’s long-standing assertion that he isn’t interested in doing sequels. Just last year Cage said:
”I’ll never say never, but I am happy that I haven’t made any sequels to this point and if I do a sequel, I’m gonna have to know for sure that the script is better then the original. So I’m gonna be very careful about that, cause I’m not eager to repeat myself.”
Click HERE for more of this interview with Nicholas Cage
Apparently, Cage has changed his mind about sequels. Fast-forward one year and Cage is out promoting the sequel to
National Treasure (2004). While discussing the film, Cage was reportedly asked if he would be interested in starring in the
Ghost Rider sequel. He responded,
“All they have to do is call, and I would love to see that happen. That would be fun.”