Ghost Rider
Ghost Rider's MPAA Rating
“You have to find the right balance to get
it,” said star Nicolas Cage. “It’s a very fine line and
you have to blend the joy of absurdity and comedy with truly scary imagery.
I think the best example of that I’d ever seen before was American
Werewolf in London. That was the template in my mind’s eye
that I wanted to try to aspire to get into that zone. Because I loved that
movie when I went to see it. I never forgot it.”
That film was rated R for gore, though it was before PG-13 existed. Recently,
another hell-based movie, Constantine,
got an R, along with lousy reviews. Ghost Rider director
Mark Stephen Johnson kept that in mind.
“I actually liked Constantine,” John son said.
“I thought it got a bad rap. I think it’s a better movie than
most people gave it credit for. But there have been a lot of movies about
this subject and it’s tough because you have to build your own world
and I never wanted to go into hell and I didn’t really want to be
Spawn. That’s not what we wanted to make. I wanted
to make something on this world. And it’s far out enough with the
flaming skull and the hell cycle that we don’t need to be going there,
too. So we just had to create our own version of this, I thought, and I
thought using end of days is always fascinating and maybe fallen angels
is fascinating. That’s a really fantastic world to put that into the
shape of a western, this gothic western which I’d never seen before.”
Cage has always been a fan of comic books, and
has been trying to make a comic book movie since his original tryouts for
Superman in the ‘90s. “The thing about comic
book films is it’s a fantasy world,” Cage said. “It’s
thoroughly entertaining and it doesn’t rely on gratuitous violence,
and you can charm children and adults alike. I’m very happy for it.
It’s almost a perfect medium for film, the comic book-based story
structures.”
Ultimately, Ghost Rider balances surreal violence with
a deadpan sort of comedy in dealing with profound human themes. “This
one’s really about choice,” said Johnson. “It’s
something that Nic had come up with during the shooting about second chances
and about everyone deserves a second chance. It’s a big theme in the
movie, obviously shown in the most graphic way we could and the most horrifying
and interesting and dramatic way we could. But I felt like there were really
big themes in this film. We had done with heaven and hell and you’re
in a big playground and it’s not a character who puts on spandex and
fights evil. It’s so different. He’s a superhero of a very different
sort. I think there hasn’t been one like it in quite a long time.
I always felt like Nic is the Lon Chaney of his generation in a way, which
for me that’s a compliment, the biggest I can give. When you see him,
quick cuts of him transforming, it’s fantastic. If it was black and
white it would be awesome. It would be Lon Chaney, it would be Bela Lugosi,
it’s fantastic. No one could do it like Nic could.”
Ghost Rider will come to theatres on February
16th, 2007.
For the movie poster, trailers, stills, set pics, movie info and synopsis,
go to the Ghost Rider
Movie Page.
Stay tuned for updates.
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