Q&A: Ghost Rider director Mark Steven Johnson
In a Premiere.com exclusive, Johnson talks about Ghost Riders multi-year journey from script to screen and how to build a better superhero movie.
By Stephen Saito
What year is it? asks Ghost Rider writer/director Mark Steven Johnson, only half kidding when recounting how long it's been since production on the Marvel Comics adaptation wrapped. (It was June 2005, by the way.) I've had two birthdays in just post-production.
During that time, star Nicolas Cage has filmed four other movies (World Trade Center, The Wicker Man and the upcoming Next and Bangkok Dangerous) and a flurry of comic book-inspired films have flooded the marketplace. Johnson is hoping that Ghost Rider's delay it was supposed to be released in August 2006 hasn't extinguished the fire from the titular hero's skull.
Almost four years to the day since Johnson's first comic book adaptation Daredevil's record $43 million opening on President's Day weekend in 2003, Ghost Rider will blazes into theaters on February 16, 2007, giving the darkest character of the Marvel brand - a stunt biker by day who by night turns into a skeletal cyclist out to avenge his father's death at the hands of the devil - his widest audience ever.
Ghost Rider doesn't put on a leotard and jump out the window, Johnson recently told a gathering of reporters. He's not that kind of guy. It's more like a monster movie. It's a werewolf story. The moon comes out and he changes and it's painful.
PREMIERE: Ghost Rider and Daredevil are two of the least mainstream comics in the Marvel Universe. Were you an outcast among your friends growing up?
MARK STEVEN JOHNSON: What's funny is that my friends didn't read any comics. Now there's kind of like this geek chic thing going on. Back then, you were not cool. So I was not cool, reading this stuff. It was really just about me and my brother. We were just obsessed with them. It was truly how we learned to read was by reading comics.
Ghost Rider was originally going to be a TV pilot. How did it become a movie?
Because the feature rights weren't available. That's the only reason. So I was like, 'I'll make a TV pilot.' [That] would've been impossible because of the effects, but I loved it that much, I was willing to try. At the time, they were making Angel, the spinoff of Buffy [the Vampire Slayer]. And they're like, 'Aw, it's too similar.' But I made the Daredevil movie and then the rights for the [Ghost Rider] feature became available. So it was a very roundabout way.
What lessons did you learn from the entire process of making Daredevil, from dealing with fans to not overstuffing the picture, to make a better superhero movie?
I had only directed a tiny little movie called Simon Birch and that gave me entry into making my comic book jones come to life. So Daredevil, for me, I had a lot to learn. I went from a little tiny movie to a $75 million movie. It was very difficult because the comics hadn't had their success that they have now. Spider-Man hadn't come out yet
[The studio Fox] wasn't beholden to the comic at all. I had to convince them for everything - to having a suit to everything else. Daredevil, it's like your kid who ****s up. You still love them and there's things in the movie I really love and things that I get up and walk out of the room for. (laughs) Ghost Rider [was at] Sony, a studio that had so much success with Spider-Man that they trust Marvel. They trust the brand. Even though Ghost Rider is really unknown, it's been around for a reason. Most people have never heard of it. But that flaming skull that image stuck in people's minds. It's on people's tattoos and people's motorcycles for a reason: because it's powerful. So that told me visually, it's right for movies, and I always loved it.
What makes the character of Ghost Rider so visually compelling as a comic also would seem to make it nearly impossible to bring to the screen. Was it daunting to write for a completely computer generated character before you even started the screenplay?
Absolutely. Ghost Rider could not have been made a couple years ago, at least not made well. I have a poster in my office saying summer 2006 (laughs). I'll be working until end of January to make February 16th release date. It's incredibly difficult. Fire's the hardest thing. Fire and water, man. And I got both. [Johnson points to a skull] Look at it, it's got no lips, it's got no expression. So you want to give it heart and anger and all you have is fire. So that fire has got to be your expression, it's got to be your emotion, it's got to be everything. That took time. And we had to develop new programs to make it happen.
You created a director's cut for Daredevil. Because of the similarly dark subject matter, is there a longer cut that you're thinking of putting together since the film is currently PG-13?
I'm sure there'll be a director's cut or an extended cut, but it's not because of rating and it's not going to be like Daredevil, which was a different movie. You know, the director's cut and the theatrical cut are 30 minutes difference, which is a quarter of a movie. This is not like that.
Are you pleased with the PG-13 rating for the film?
Certainly, I was really pleasantly surprised that we did not have to change anything to make the rating. It really made me happy. Thank God, because I think we went into that fantasy realm, so then you're not dealing with a real person's face on fire screaming. We have that transformation scene, which is really intense. That being said, we've still been prohibited from putting our trailer on certain movies out right now because it's too intense. That's been a difficult thing because it's like you can't help but read fans writing in, saying, 'oh, it's going to ***** out. Where's the transformation?' Like no, no, no, no, no, it's incredible. I just can't show it. But once you see it, it's intense.
One last question: Did you get to keep the Hellcycle that Ghost Rider rides on?
I want that in my garage so bad. (laughs) And we're still working on that. It's gorgeous. It's beautiful to ride. You just can't corner. It's like 12 feet long and if you corner, you dump it. I just want it to look at
I spent a lot of time designing it and I'm really proud of it.
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