Ghost Rider, motorcycle hero, may be riding through Europe with his head on fire sooner rather than later (ie. sometime this year), according to a Collider interview with producer Mike De Luca.
The tentatively titled Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance is, as previously reported, an update by David Goyer of his own decade-old treatment, from the days when Stephen Norrington was sniffing around the franchise, and Mark Steven Johnson was still only the writer of Grumpy Old Men.
De Luca says that, as GR is "a unique blend of theology and action", the production team are liking Nic Cage's idea to take the Flaming Skull to Europe: "we could avail ourselves of a lot of religious sites and history that aren't available in the US. We want to be as fresh and new as we can get in terms of getting away from that pseudo-western thing."
Elsewhere in the interview, De Luca confirms that Johnson won't be back in the director's chair, and that Eva Mendez will not feature again as Roxanne. He says 3D is definitely on the cards (natch), reiterates Goyer's previous belief that the film will aim for a "hard PG-13" (think The Dark Knight), and says he'd be happy for Goyer to take on the megaphone duties himself, if he can fit it in around his commitments to FlashForward.
And we may be talking lower-budget than before: not because the first film was unsuccessful (it wasn't, financially at least) but because this time the team is going in prepared. "Rewriting when you're shooting always drives up the cost of FX movies," he explains. "We have enough lead time on this one to do it the traditional way: lock a script and shoot what we've written. It's a real smart way if you can do it."