0123456789 GHOST RIDER: SPIRIT OF VENGEANCE Words: Nick de Semlyen SOME SAY… HE HAS A FLAMING SKULL, THAT HIS FIRST FILM WAS A CRITICAL DUD, AND THAT HE’S NOW TEAMED UP WITH HOLLYWOOD’S MADDEST DIRECTORS FOR A GONZO REBOOT. ALL WE KNOW IS THAT HE’S CALLED… GHOST RIDER: SPIRIT OF VENGEANCE E EATS COCKROACHES. sage). Though it made a respectable $229 million THEY’VE KILLED JASON worldwide, it seemed unlikely that Cage, an STATHAM TWICE. HE YELLS AT ardent enthusiast of Rider lore, would don the IGUANAS. THEY’VE POWERED leathers again. But something about this gonzo A CAR WITH GERARD BUTLER’S pair convinced him to approve the reboot. Hpiss. All three are famed as livewire mavericks Could it be that he looked at them and saw who, on set at least, probe the very brink of his younger, rawer self? sanity. So when Nicolas Cage met Neveldine/ “He trusts us,” says Brian Taylor. “It’s Taylor, it was naturally love at first sight. amazing, because Nic was actually one of “It was in New Orleans,” reminisces Mark the guys we wanted for Crank, but he was Neveldine, the taller, bearded half of the duo way out of our price range. Now we’ve got behind the Crank films and Gamer, of their him and he’s absolutely fearless. You invite first encounter with the star. “We went to him to go there, he’ll go there. He just needs a restaurant and had a bunch of beer and to be invited — like a vampire.” something called Café Brulé, a crazy mix of coffee and Cognac that you light on fire. Then PTLY, WHEN Empire IS we broke into a cemetery.” INVITED TO SEE WHAT’S Er, why? “There were specific graves Nic BREWING WITH GHOST RIDER: wanted to look at,” Neveldine shrugs. “We SPIRIT OF VENGEANCE (NOT jumped over a stone wall, but some guards were GHOST RIDER 2; “IT’S NOT looking for us so we had to run and get in a taxi. Aa sequel”, stresses Neveldine), the production is It was awesome. The kind of experience you shooting an all-nighter near a castle rumoured dream of having with Nic Cage.” to once house Dracula himself, Vlad The The evening’s mise en scène — flames, Impaler. We’re not far from the Romanian delirium and death — couldn’t have been more village of Targu Jiu, in a desolate quarry perfect. After all, the writer-directors were in the dominated by a gigantic earth-digging machine. Big Easy to pitch their vision for a Ghost Rider This is the setting for one of the movie’s biggest movie to Johnny Blaze himself. In doing so, they and baddest action sequences, a second-act were treading a treacherous path. The first mêlée in which Johnny Blaze, having fully Ghost Rider film, Mark Steven Johnson’s 2007 transformed into the Rider for the first time adaptation of the Marvel comic book about during the film, will take on and massacre an a stunt motorcyclist cursed to become a fiery- army of mercenaries. skulled minion of Satan, flamed out critically There’s no sign of Cage. As the weak winter (“No torque at all,” proclaimed one Boston sun sets and a chill fog sweeps in, we watch [[1L]] EMPIRE SEPTEMBER 2011 empireonline.com Subscribe at www.empireonline.com/sub SEPTEMBER 2011 EMPIRE [[2R]] 0123456789 GHOST RIDER: SPIRIT OF VENGEANCE BRIEFING GHOST RIDER: SPIRIT OF VENGEANCE RELEASED: February 22 DIRECTORS: Mark Neveldine, Brian Taylor STARRING: Nicolas Cage, Idris Elba, Violante Placido, Johnny Whitworth, Ciarán Hinds STORY: Johnny Blaze (Cage) is in self-imposed exile in Eastern Europe, keeping his distance from people lest he turn into Ghost Rider again. But when a mysterious monk (Elba) asks him to protect a mother and son from dark forces, the genie comes spectacularly out of the bottle. Neveldine and Taylor blow up a few Romanian extras, either for B-roll footage or just to pass the time. Finally, a black sedan with tinted windows rolls up. After a long beat, a back door opens and the movie’s star steps out. And everyone on set takes a pace back. Cage is clad head-to-toe in black leather, Idris Elba plays a motorcycling which isn’t too surprising. What’s more monk. Rowan unnerving is that his face has been painted Williams take note. skull-white, and his eyes transformed by contact lenses into dead, dark pools. As he skulks silently around, eventually perching on the edge of a crate, it becomes clear that this is Method Cage. Tonight, he is the Ghost Rider. what he does. It’s not just a physical force, but Alongside the fresh setting (Blaze has fled “Nic didn’t play the Rider in the original he’s actually fucking with your head, driving “ C A G E I S A T H I N G to remote Eastern Europe to try to avoid movie,” whispers Neveldine. “It was just some you insane. His methods are closer to the girl triggering his inner demon), there’s a new burly stuntman walking around. We all decided in The Ring’s than Captain America’s.” UNLEA S H E D . support cast: Violante Placido as the beautiful that a guy who comes from hell should move The night’s most memorable moment takes Nadya, Fergus Riordan as sprog-with-a-secret in a really weird way when he’s on this plane. place at 3am, when Neveldine and Taylor It’S LIKE Danny, Ciarán Hinds as Satan, and Johnny You’ll see tonight how much Nic’s diving into execute a surreal gag they call “The Compass”. Whitworth as demonic foe Blackout. Plus Idris that. Actually, he’s freaking some of the other Inspired by a Nine Inch Nails music video, it Elba as a rogue member of a secret monastic actors out.” involves suspending Cage upside-down and PHOTOGRAPHING order, who apparently ride tricked-out With a crew member’s call of, “Bring out spinning him rapidly in circles as a strobe Motocruisers to Mass. the chains!”, Cage moves into action. Over the light pulses. “We didn’t even put this in the A B E N G A L Hang on a minute. Romantic aside? Cutesy next few hours, we watch the A-lister rip mercs script,” grins Taylor, “because we were like, kids? Are the Crank guys, whose previous limb from limb with spectral whips, swallow ‘How the fuck are we going to explain it to T I G E R AT TA C K .” idea of a love scene was to intercut Jason a hail of machine-gun bullets before spitting the studio?’” Statham bonking with a horse’s cock, going them back out, and use the power of his mind ARI ARAD soft on us? to make a foe kill himself. Throughout, his HOST RIDER: SPIRIT OF “Oh no, this is a dark movie,” Taylor pledges. head is lit up by a flashing LED helmet, later VENGEANCE IS A TESTING “Sony Pictures knew what they were getting into to be turned into the Rider’s burning bonce. GROUND FOR THE DUO: when they hired us. Though we had to actually As he scuttles about, head snapping from side AFFORDED A BIG BUDGET tone down David Goyer’s original draft. It was to side and shoulders gyrating like a zombie AND BIGGER STAR, WILL THEIR great, but unfilmable; there was no way to justify Elvis, Empire begins to worry that he’ll eat Gtwisted, hyper-kinetic stylings breathe fresh air the budget for something that dark. I mean, our Dictaphone. into the world of comic-book movies, or merely I could write a movie where the Silver Surfer “It’s a thing unleashed,” delights producer create an expensive oddity? fucks Wonder Woman — it’s awesome, but it’s Ari Arad (son of Avi). “It’s like photographing “Shooting this has been really, really never going to get made!” a Bengal tiger attack!” Taylor explains that some difficult,” says Neveldine, “but there hasn’t [email protected] Nicolas Cage doing what he does best: shots will even be reversed in post: “We’re defying been a single day where we haven’t got great Nicolas Cage. all laws of logic and reason, playing up the stuff. Now that might just be our perception Ghost Rider: Spirit Of Vengeance is out on weird psychological nightmare language of and completely insane, but we’re feeling good.” February 22, 2012. [[1L]] EMPIRE SEPTEMBER 2011 empireonline.com Subscribe at www.empireonline.com/sub SEPTEMBER 2011 EMPIRE [[2R]].