Ghost Rider: A new hero rides to the big screen

From Marvel Comics, creators of "Spider-Man," "Blade" and "X-Men," comes a new hero... "Ghost Rider." Nicolas Cage stars as superstar motorcycle stunt rider

Johnny Blaze who long ago made a deal with the devil to protect the ones he loved most: his father and his childhood sweetheart, Roxanne (Eva Mendes).

Now, the devil has come for his due. By day, Johnny is a die-hard stunt rider... but at night, in the presence of evil, he becomes the Ghost Rider, a bounty hunter of rogue demons. Forced to do the devil's bidding, Johnny is determined to confront his fate and use his curse and powers to defend the innocent.

"Ghost Rider" is directed by Mark Steven Johnson who knows comic books about as well as any Hollywood director. He directed "Daredevil," he co-wrote its spin-off, "Elektra," and, as if that wasn't enough, he worked with "Batman Begins" screenwriter David Goyer on the "Ghost Rider"script. The director talks about filming "Ghost Rider," working with David Goyer, translating comics to the big screen, and what we can expect from the movie.

Question: What's the toughest part to translate comics to the big screen?

Mark Steven Johnson: For this one the visuals because this is one of those you couldn't have made even a couple of years ago. Fire is a really tough thing on CG, and the skull and everything...its just one of those that if it would've been done on prosthetics it would've been I think horrible. I'm a big fan of doing things real but this is one of those where you can't. Once Sony Imageworks did some tests we realized we can really do it. So for this one that was the toughest thing.

Q: Do you feel any pressure doing a Sony movie after "Spider-Man"? Another comic book movie.

Johnson: There's ton of pressure but not because of that. (Laughs) They're so different. I hate it when people lump it all together as comic book movies because they're so different, their apples and oranges. This is not a guy putting on a costume or some of the issues... "Ghost Rider" is so not like that. It's more of a classic kind of monster movie more than it is a superhero, it just happens to come from a comic book.

Q: Did you read any material for "Ghost Rider" before?

Johnson: Oh yeah absolutely, I've been reading "Ghost Rider," "Daredevil" all these comics since I was a little kid. I literally learned to read by reading comics. "Ghost Rider" I wanted to do first, and I met with Avi Arad and even someone before Avi Arad, it's been so long. This has been seven or eight years in the making.

Q: What made Nicolas Cage the right actor for this role?

Johnson: What's good about Nic is that he'll always say, "I can't relate to a guy like that what if he did this, what if he did that." Its always more interesting, Nic would always do things like, there's this scene in the locker room and he's about to go out and Nic's like "You know I've always wanted to drink a whole hot pot of coffee when I'm really nervous in a scene" and I'm like "Cool lets try it." And he'll grab a pot of coffee and drink it and its just things like that, that only Nic can get away with no one else can get away with it. It's actually funny and its kind of cool or the way he would play a transformation scene and what that would feel like, he's so intense.

One thing you have to say about Nic he does everything 100% he never goes half way, he goes for it. So these scenes where he's changing and screaming, it's difficult to watch cause he commits himself so holy to the role. That's I think the biggest thing, the level of commitment doesn't give a shit what he looks like, doesn't care, doesn't worry about vanity none of that. He just goes for it and commits himself to it.

Q: Can you talk about what you added to the David Goyer script since you got on to the project?

Johnson: It's really a different script. The original script that David did is a totally different story and then Shane Salerno would come on and he did his own different story, and then I did my own. Its one of those things that there is no right or wrong to it, just like anybody will do your version its going to be your version. David chose a different story and I really liked it. It just isn't the story that I was going to tell, so there really completely different screenplays. I really like David's writing a lot though, big fan of him.

Q: How much of the script has changed?

Johnson: It's changed the least of anything I've ever worked on, which is great. It was a tough one to crack up front, but once I felt like I did then it all flowed really nicely. What was really hard was just the concept up front, which is very rare. Usually the concept is the strongest part of the comic and in this one the idea is great the character is amazing and there's some great story lines but the actual idea...

The fact that the devil made a deal with Johnny and gave him all these powers and Johnny took those powers to go fight the devil never quite added up. And so everybody over the years kept trying to solve that and change that, so it's kind of actually a faulty concept in a wired way and so that was odd, that's something that took me many many months to finally crack it. And once I came with the idea of the devil's bounty hunter, that there's rules in heaven and hell on earth. The ideas that Mephistopheles has to find the best rider in the world to become his Ghost Rider. That made sense to me, he has to give him this power because he works for him. Then I got it, then everything from there flowed but at first it was tough.

(Opening soon across the Philippines, "Ghost Rider" is distributed by Columbia Pictures, local office of Sony Pictures Releasing International.)