He's directing only his third film, but Mark Steven Johnson has learned the secret to luring A-list talent to his movies: Offer them comic-book characters.
That's how he nabbed Ben Affleck for 2003's Daredevil, and it worked again in attracting Nicolas Cage for the lead in Ghost Rider, due Aug. 4, 2006.
"Most of these guys are comic-book geeks like me," Johnson says from Melbourne, Australia, where he is shooting the story of Johnny Blaze (Cage), a biker who sells his soul to the devil to save his girlfriend and then struggles with his demonic side, aka Ghost Rider. "Nic is one of the biggest fans of the comic book out there."
So big, in fact, that the actor sports a tattoo of the Ghost Rider's flaming skull on his arm. Makeup artists had to cover it for the film. Says Johnson: "The irony is we had to remove Nic's Ghost Rider so he could play Ghost Rider."