When he arrives home, Blaze finds Simpson and reveals himself as the Devil's bounty hunter. Unconvinced, she walks away in disbelief. After a brief imprisonment for the murders Blackheart committed, Blaze goes to the Caretaker for advice. The Caretaker tells him of his predecessor,
Carter Slade, a
Texas Ranger who hid the contract of San Venganza. Blaze returns home to find that Blackheart has killed his friend Mack and already has taken Roxanne captive, threatening to kill her if Blaze does not deliver the contract to him.
Blaze returns to the Caretaker and obtains the contract. The Caretaker reveals that he is Carter Slade. Slade tells Blaze that he is more powerful than his predecessors since he sold his soul for love as opposed to greed. The two leave for San Venganza. Slade gives Blaze a lever action shotgun before fading away.
After killing one of the fallen angels, Blaze gives the contract to Blackheart. He quickly transforms into Ghost Rider in an effort to subdue Blackheart, but dawn arrives and he is rendered powerless. Blackheart uses the contract to
absorb the thousand souls into his body. He attempts to kill Blaze, but is distracted when Simpson uses Blaze's discarded shotgun to separate them. After Blaze tries to kill Blackheart with the shotgun, he moves in and uses his Penance Stare to render him catatonic, burning all the corrupt souls within Blackheart.
Mephistopheles appears and returns Blaze his soul, offering to take back the curse of the Ghost Rider. Determined not to make another deal; Blaze declines, saying that he will use his power against him, and against all harm that comes to the innocent. Infuriated of being robbed of the power, Mephistopheles vows to make Blaze pay, but Blaze tells Mephistopheles that he is not afraid. Mephistopheles then disappears, taking Blackheart's body with him. Later, Simpson tells Blaze that he got his second chance before sharing a final kiss with him. Blaze then rides away on his motorcycle, turning into the Ghost Rider.
Marvel Studio began development for
Ghost Rider as early as 1992 and were in discussions with potential distributors.
[4] In 1997
Gale Anne Hurd was listed as producer, with
Jonathan Hensleigh attached to write the script.
[5] David S. Goyerdeveloped a script and in May 2000 Marvel announced an agreement with Crystal Sky Entertainment to film
Ghost Rider with actor
Jon Voight attached as a producer. Production was scheduled to start in early 2001 with a budget of $75 million and
Johnny Depp expressing interest in the lead role.
[6] The following August,
Dimension Films joined Crystal Sky to co-finance the film, which would be directed by
Stephen Norrington.
[7] Producer
Avi Arad approached
Eric Bana on the possibility of playing Ghost Rider, but opted to cast him in
Hulk instead.
[8] In June 2001, actor and Ghost Rider fan
Nicolas Cage entered talks to be cast into the lead role,
[9] after having found out about Depp being a possibility for the role and contacted the director to express his own interest.
[10] Norrington would drop out within a few months due his commitment to
Tick Tock[11] and Cage eventually left the project as well. By May 2002
Columbia Pictures sought to acquire rights to
Ghost Rider in
turnaround from Dimension Films following their success with
Spider-Man.
[12] They brought
Shane Salerno to rewrite Goyer's script.
[13]
In April 2003, under Columbia Pictures, director
Mark Steven Johnson took over the helm for
Ghost Rider with Cage returning for the lead role. Johnson, rewriting Salerno's script, was set to begin production of
Ghost Rider in late 2003 or early 2004.
[14] but it was delayed to October 2003. Cage took a temporary leave of absence to film
The Weather Man.
Ghost Rider production was slated to tentatively begin in May or June 2004.
[15]
Ghost Rider had again been delayed to begin in late 2004, but the lack of a workable script continued to delay production.
[16] In January 2005, actor
Wes Bentley was cast as the villain
Blackheart, having been introduced to Johnson by
Colin Farrell, who had worked with the director in
Daredevil.
[17] Actress
Eva Mendes was also cast opposite Cage as
Roxanne Simpson.
[18] On February 14, 2005,
Ghost Ridercommenced filming in Australia at the
Melbourne Docklands film studios.
[19] Then in March 2005, actor
Peter Fonda (who starred in
Easy Rider) was cast as the villain
Mephistopheles.
[20] Johnson originally planned to film before an audience at the
Telstra Dome, but instead opted to create a crowd using computer-generated imagery.
[21] The director also chose to film in the motorcycle district of
Melbourne.
[22] By June 2005, principal photography had been completed for
Ghost Rider,
[23] which was set for a summer 2006 release.
[24] In April 2006, the cast and crew performed last-minute reshoots in
Vancouver.
[25] Ghost Rider was originally scheduled to release on August 4, 2006,
[26] but the date was moved three weeks earlier to July 14, 2006.
[27] Sony changed the film's release date once more to February 16, 2007 to help relieve the studio's crowded 2006 calendar.
[28]
"Character portrayal"
Instead of a "hard drinking and smoking bad ass" Johnny Blaze, Nicolas Cage decided to give him more depth. "I'm playing him more as someone who... made this deal and he's trying to avoid confronting it, anything he can do to keep it away from him". Cage also explained that Blaze's stunt riding was a form of escape and a way to keep him connected to his deceased father, who taught him to ride. Cage rode a
Buell motorcycle for Blaze's stunt cycle, and a heavily customized hardtail chopper named "Grace" which transforms into the "Hell Cycle".
[29] The Hell Cycle's wheels, made of pure flames in the comics, were changed to be solid tires covered in flames in order to give the motorcycle more weight onscreen.
[30]
The film's visual effects supervisor,
Kevin Mack, and the visual effects team at
Sony Pictures Imageworks handled the difficult task of creating computer-generated fire on a shot-by-shot basis.
[31] Ghost Rider's
skull flames were designed to become smaller and
blue to display any
emotion other than rage.
[30] Kevin's Team at Imageworks also created computer-generated motorcycles, chains, water, black goo, dementors and buildings. To pull off such effects as the living morph where the hardtail chopper ("Grace") comes alive to become the "Hell Cycle" Sony enlisted teams of animators, models, effects artists, lighters & "Flame" artists. The department supervisors for these teams at Imageworks included Kevin Hudson, Brian Steiner, JD Cowels, Marco Marenghi, Joe Spadaro, Joanie Karnowski, Vincent Serritella & Patrick Witting. Patrick's team bore the brunt of the work as they created the fire using a custom pipeline that automated the set up starting with Maya animated geometry driving Maya Fluids, imported into Houdini and then rendered & composited on top of the live action plates. Patrick and his team set up the fire process and much of the front end automation was set up by Scott Palleiko and Joe Spadaro. The fire was then tweaked and manipulated to look and move believably by Patick's eleven man Houdini effects team. All of this was enabled by effects producers Daniel Kuehn and the Digital Effects Supervisor Kee-Suk 'Ken' Hahn.
The digital version of the hell cycle was modeled in detail by Kevin Hudson and based on the practical prop used in the film, it included animatable skeletal hands that came alive to wrap the gas tank during the supernatural transformation scene. The transformation scene was animated by Max Tyrie and finalized by Joe Spadaro. Each part of the "Grace" geometry had to match up and morph with a piece of geometry on the "Hell Cycle"
The bullet time like scene where Ghost Rider on the "Hell Cycle" jumps from a building cutting to slow motion with the flaming chain was the brainchild of animator Maks Naporowski.
Kevin Mack, was looking for what he called "shoe leather" to tie the two scenes together. Maks & Marco came up with this incredible concept that went on to become one of the most impressive scenes in the film & on the trailers.
[32] Ghost Rider's voice was manipulated by sound designer
Dane Davis, who won an
Academy Award for Sound Editing for
The Matrix. Davis filtered Cage's line readings through three different kinds of animal growls that were played backwards and covered separate frequencies. Davis then amplified the dialogue through a mechanical volumizer. Director Johnson described the sound as a "deep, demonic, mechanical lion's roar".
[33]
In May 2005, Sony Pictures launched the official website for
Ghost Rider.
[35]
The following July, the studio presented a
Ghost Rider panel at
Comic-Con International and screened a teaser for the audience.
[30] The teaser, which did not have finalized footage of the film, eventually leaked online.
[36] In the same month, Majesco Entertainment Company announced its deal with Marvel to acquire worldwide rights to produce the video game
Ghost Rider for the
PS2,
PSP, and
Game Boy Advance consoles.
[37]
In December 2005, the studio presented a first glimpse of Ghost Rider in a ten-second footage piece on the official site.
[38]
The following May, domestic and international teaser trailers for
Ghost Rider were launched at
Apple.
[40]
The Ghost Rider was also featured in a commercial for Jackson Hewitt Tax Services in which the character presented his income tax forms to a clerk for processing to receive a quick refund che\