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http://uk.movies.ign.com/articles/794/794755p1.html
Johnson may not direct; plus, who'll be the villain?
by Scott Collura
US, June 7, 2007 - Writer-director Mark Steven Johnson was in New York yesterday to promote next week's release of Ghost Rider on DVD, and IGN caught up with the helmer to discuss the two-disc set. The interview took place at Sony's "Higher Definition" tech event, which meant that Johnson and IGN were able to chat while scenes from Ghost Rider unfolded in front of us on a huge high-definition TV. So while Nicolas Cage's first fiery transformation took place in all its high-def glory just a few feet away, Johnson discussed what's going on with a proposed second outing for Johnny Blaze.
"We're talking about it, yeah, talking about it," says Johnson of Ghost Rider 2. "I don't know what I'm going to do, to be honest. After Daredevil and this it takes so long, these movies. I really want something different, and the pressure of the fan community is always so great. I would like to do something more comedy-based, go back to my roots like the Grumpy Old Men movies and do something with effects. I love effects; I love working with them. So I don't know about for myself, if that's in the cards for me."
Still, even if Johnson doesn't direct another Ghost Rider film, he says he'd definitely produce and be involved in the picture. "For sure I'd still want to be involved because I love it, and I love everybody involved with it," he says.
The filmmaker also has a notion as to which characters from the Marvel comic book might show up in the sequel as the villains of the piece. Johnson says that, like Superman, Ghost Rider doesn't have a bunch of recognizable adversaries, but he does have some cool ones.
"If there's a second one, I would push for Scarecrow," he says. "In fact, in my first script it was Scarecrow who was the villain, but then I heard that they were going to put him in the Batman movie. But now having seen it, he wasn't really in it that much. And the Marvel Scarecrow is really pretty cool, so I think he'd be an excellent villain. I also think there's a character named Blackout that could be interesting, [and] there's Vengeance from the later comics."
Johnson says that if and when Ghost Rider 2 happens, expect it to be more action-packed. The first film suffered in his opinion because of the cost of creating the complicated title character (that CG fire isn't cheap), and he believes that meant that certain action scenes had to be trimmed down in order to save some coin. The second film won't face that same problem, though.
"I think one of my regrets for this movie [was that] Ghost Rider got so expensive himself, [so] it kind of cut away from some of the action," says Johnson. "I wish we had a lot more action than we do. And so for the second one, now that that's all built, that will bring the cost down on Ghost Rider and you can put more money into the fights, into the creatures. I mean, you'd like to see hell unleashed, do the same thing that Guillermo [del Toro] has done with the second Hellboy -- just hundreds of monsters and just really have some fun with it. You don't need to do the origin again, you don't need to do any of that. And the love story, I wouldn't do any of that. I would make it much more about him fighting everything that the devil throws in his way. We spent a lot of money designing the fire, the CG fire, and the skull and all that, and now that's all banked, so it does help."
And as for future comic book adaptations? Johnson is working on bringing DC's Vertigo comic Preacher to TV as an HBO series, but otherwise the filmmaker says he's more or less spent in this area now.
"I need to do something else," he says. "All the A-level characters are taken, and most people had never even heard of Ghost Rider or Daredevil for that matter. And I like that. That's what I like about Preacher, so that to me is kind of like my last comic jones, Preacher. Just doing it right and producing and writing it and shepherding it."
Check back at IGN soon for more from Johnson on the status of Preacher and the Ghost Rider DVD!
Johnson may not direct; plus, who'll be the villain?
by Scott Collura
US, June 7, 2007 - Writer-director Mark Steven Johnson was in New York yesterday to promote next week's release of Ghost Rider on DVD, and IGN caught up with the helmer to discuss the two-disc set. The interview took place at Sony's "Higher Definition" tech event, which meant that Johnson and IGN were able to chat while scenes from Ghost Rider unfolded in front of us on a huge high-definition TV. So while Nicolas Cage's first fiery transformation took place in all its high-def glory just a few feet away, Johnson discussed what's going on with a proposed second outing for Johnny Blaze.
"We're talking about it, yeah, talking about it," says Johnson of Ghost Rider 2. "I don't know what I'm going to do, to be honest. After Daredevil and this it takes so long, these movies. I really want something different, and the pressure of the fan community is always so great. I would like to do something more comedy-based, go back to my roots like the Grumpy Old Men movies and do something with effects. I love effects; I love working with them. So I don't know about for myself, if that's in the cards for me."
Still, even if Johnson doesn't direct another Ghost Rider film, he says he'd definitely produce and be involved in the picture. "For sure I'd still want to be involved because I love it, and I love everybody involved with it," he says.
The filmmaker also has a notion as to which characters from the Marvel comic book might show up in the sequel as the villains of the piece. Johnson says that, like Superman, Ghost Rider doesn't have a bunch of recognizable adversaries, but he does have some cool ones.
"If there's a second one, I would push for Scarecrow," he says. "In fact, in my first script it was Scarecrow who was the villain, but then I heard that they were going to put him in the Batman movie. But now having seen it, he wasn't really in it that much. And the Marvel Scarecrow is really pretty cool, so I think he'd be an excellent villain. I also think there's a character named Blackout that could be interesting, [and] there's Vengeance from the later comics."
Johnson says that if and when Ghost Rider 2 happens, expect it to be more action-packed. The first film suffered in his opinion because of the cost of creating the complicated title character (that CG fire isn't cheap), and he believes that meant that certain action scenes had to be trimmed down in order to save some coin. The second film won't face that same problem, though.
"I think one of my regrets for this movie [was that] Ghost Rider got so expensive himself, [so] it kind of cut away from some of the action," says Johnson. "I wish we had a lot more action than we do. And so for the second one, now that that's all built, that will bring the cost down on Ghost Rider and you can put more money into the fights, into the creatures. I mean, you'd like to see hell unleashed, do the same thing that Guillermo [del Toro] has done with the second Hellboy -- just hundreds of monsters and just really have some fun with it. You don't need to do the origin again, you don't need to do any of that. And the love story, I wouldn't do any of that. I would make it much more about him fighting everything that the devil throws in his way. We spent a lot of money designing the fire, the CG fire, and the skull and all that, and now that's all banked, so it does help."
And as for future comic book adaptations? Johnson is working on bringing DC's Vertigo comic Preacher to TV as an HBO series, but otherwise the filmmaker says he's more or less spent in this area now.
"I need to do something else," he says. "All the A-level characters are taken, and most people had never even heard of Ghost Rider or Daredevil for that matter. And I like that. That's what I like about Preacher, so that to me is kind of like my last comic jones, Preacher. Just doing it right and producing and writing it and shepherding it."
Check back at IGN soon for more from Johnson on the status of Preacher and the Ghost Rider DVD!
