One half of the Crank helming duo talks Ghost Rider!
Read Part 2
The Ghost Rider is heading back to cinemas this week with sequel
Spirit of Vengeance, which once against stars
Nicolas Cage as Johnny Blaze – a man who makes a deal with the devil and ends up as an immortal dude with a flaming skull for a head who rides one hell of a hog. Doesn’t seem so bad to us.
The second film is being directed by filmmaker double header
Neveldine/Taylor. They’re the frankly certifiable folks behind 2006s
Crank and its nutballs sequel
Crank: High Voltage, and they’re teaming up with Cage to bring some crazy back to
Ghost Rider.
Ahead of the release of
Spirit of Vengeance, we got a chance to talk to
Mark Neveldine about how they duo got involved with the film, as well as quizzing him on working with
Cage and the possibility of a third slice of
Crank in the future.
CLICK: Can you give me a quick rundown of the plot for Ghost Rider?
MN: Ghost Rider 2… Johnny Blaze is trying to find himself over in Eastern Europe, he’s trying to run away from his demons and his addiction. There’s a French drunk monk who needs to find him urgently because the Devil is going to take human form and he has to be stopped! And of course the only guy to get would be the Ghost Rider and Nicolas Cage is the dual role of Johnny Blaze and the Ghost Rider and he struggles with the idea of trying to run away from his curse. And ultimately he takes the job and I can’t tell you what happens after that!
CLICK: So, how did you get involved with Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance?
MN: Brian and I were pitching another movie to Sony.
CLICK: Can you tell me what movie?
MN: Um… I don’t know if I can tell you what the movie was. I’m not sure if I can…
[A Sony press officer interjects] No, you can’t!
MN: Ok good, I can’t. Thank you, I was waiting for that. So we were pitching a movie and they said hey that sounds great but we’ve got something ready to go right now from a David Goyer script and asked us if we knew anything about Ghost Rider. I had never seen the movie but Brian is really into comic books and he asked them what the plan was. And they pitched it to me in one minute which was basically – there’s this dude on a motorcycle whose skull is on fire and he sucks the souls out of people. And I said – where do I sign? There wasn’t much time, it was a go movie and they were already in pre production and we were just so pumped up because Nic Cage was on board, no one else was at the time and they just wanted to reinvent the thing and wanted us to put our ridiculous stamp on it which was surprising but awesome and that’s how it happened.
CLICK: It’s also the first film you guys have directed that you didn’t write the script for and you didn’t have much prep time – was that a challenge?
MN: It was a great challenge because it was such fun to do something like this. We got in and put a little stamp on it, made it our own and it was just a fun project. It was also one of the bigger projects we’ve ever taken on at a bigger studio, with a bigger star, the whole thing. And we were kind of looking forward to doing something like this. But they also gave us a lot of creative freedom; we got to tweak the look and the aesthetic of Ghost Rider, to make it more kick ass and adrenaline filled.
CLICK: It’s your biggest budget to date; did that give you more freedom or less?
MN: The budget was really not more it’s just the franchise was bigger and at a bigger studio. At the end of the day, we were shooting over in Romania and Turkey not just for the beautiful locations but also because you can get it done there a little cheaper. The challenges were just as hard, we had to pull out all the tricks – I was still shooting on roller blades, still hanging out of helicopters and cars and doing ridiculous things. I mean I was on a wire 500 feet over a cliff! It’s kind of what you have to do.
CLICK: So you guys still operate the cameras on your movies?
MN: You have to at the end of the day and it’s a make or break thing for us. Daylight hours were really short because we were shooting in winter and you have to just get that camera in your hand and know that you got the shot in the can.
CLICK: You are known for making particularly R-rated movies and Ghost Rider is a PG-13, was that something you found difficult?
MN: I mean yea we always have to swallow that because you want to be a little more honest in your take on action and violence. But it was a good challenge for us to kind of condense our… I guess just tone down our ridiculousness and see if we can still tell a story. So it was a good challenge. But we just made this thing as PG-15 as we could make it.
CLICK: What is it like coming into a series for the second film?
MN: I just saw it as a movie. I had not seen the first movie; I still have not seen it. Only in that… Brian did and he didn’t want me to watch it because ours will be different. It’s a true reinvention that’s based on a script from David Goyer that predates the first film. So I’m actually going to watch Ghost Rider 1 right before our movie comes out and watch both of them. I’m excited about that!
CLICK: You can’t be unaware that the first film wasn’t that well received.
MN: Sure.
CLICK: Does that make things harder for you?
MN: I think it makes it easy for us! The movie made a ton of money so obviously people went to see it, even if it didn’t get well reviewed. So, the bar wasn’t that high and it was kind of fun for us to go in there and just do our thing. I think it’s really about the character – a guy with a flaming skull and it’s Neveldine/Taylor. It’s should be fun.
CLICK: Nicolas Cage has a reputation for crazy characters and you guys make movies with crazy characters – was that a good fit?
MN: From the moment we knew we had the job and the moment we met Nic in New Orleans we felt this spark and just kind of knew it was fate that brought us there!
CLICK: There do seem to be a couple of different versions of Cage – some more over the top than others. What kind of Cage do you have in this film?
MN: I think when you get Nic you get all that – we have the wild Nic, we have the tough Nic, we have the sensitive and quiet Nic. He’s just a real well rounded guy and he’s kind of nuts like that – we had a lot of fun on the set and off the set and I know we just really want to do another movie with him. He’s so professional too, if I can just mention that. On the set, the guy is known for being whacky and nuts at times but when he’s on the set he’s the most professional actor. He’s never late, he knows everybody’s lines. He comes with brilliant ideas but yet you never have to take his idea. That’s why he’s a great actor.
That’s the end of Part 1 –
click for Part 2 of our chat with Mark Neveldine, where he talks Crank 3!
Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance is in cinemas from the 17th of February.