As Deadpool & Wolverine continues to dominate the global box office, new information about the superhero tentpole is coming out every other day. It turns out that Nicolas Cage’s Ghost Rider nearly made an appearance in a film that went on to feature cameo appearances of Jennifer Garner’s Elektra, Wesley Snipes’ Blade, and Chris Evans as Johnny Storm / Human Torch, to name a few.
Ryan Reynolds reveals talks of Nicolas Cage’s Ghost Rider return
Ryan Reynolds, the star, co-writer, and producer of Deadpool & Wolverine, revealed in a recent interview that there were talks about Cage reprising his role as Johnny Blaze / Ghost Rider in the movie. Unfortunately for the fans of Ghost Rider (2007) and Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance, that didn’t ultimately happen.
Recently, in an interview with Collider alongside Deadpool & Wolverine director Shawn Levy, Reynolds was asked whether they ever considered the prospect of Cage’s Ghost Rider being one of the cameos in the movie. “Yes,” the Red Notice actor said, before adding that the matter “came to a conversation for sure. Yeah, but no.” Further, Reynolds reportedly seemed reserved on the subject.
Helmed by Mark Steven Johnson, Ghost Rider garnered a predominantly negative response from the critics and currently has a 27% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes from 140 reviews. However, the film was a commercial success, earning $228.7 million at the global box office against its $110 million budget. The performance of Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance with the critics was poorer. It currently has a 19% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes after 120 reviews, though it did manage to make $132.6 – 149.4 million globally against the $57 million budget.
Back in December 2023, Cage told Uproxx that he would return as Ghost Rider if “something came along” that he thought “had some pop to it, some spark to it, that maybe could be fun for folks to revisit.” The Oscar-winning actor will return to voice another Marvel character, Spider-Man Noir, in Spider-Man: Beyond the Spider-Verse, the upcoming third installment in the Spider-Verse franchise. He will also portray a live-action version of the character in the MGM Plus and Amazon Prime Video series Spider-Man Noir.
Notably, Cage and Reynolds have worked together as voice actors in the 2013 animated feature The Croods and its 2020 sequel The Croods: A New Age.
