High-octane film director Brian Taylor took the time to chat to Flickering Myth this week and had some choice words for the new take on Ghost Rider in the Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. TV show.
Taylor, who directed 2011 sequel Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance with regular collaborator Mark Neveldine, said the current TV incarnation of the character has “no interest” for him and said he regrets not having the chance to make the movie R-rated, saying the original, harder script by David S. Goyer was “awesome”.
Speaking to us in order to promote his new film Mom and Dad, which also stars Ghost Rider actor Nicolas Cage, Taylor said his “biggest regret” about Ghost Rider was not pushing for an R-rating.
He said: “I think that Ghost Rider should be a rated-R, horror character. The original script that David Goyer wrote for that movie, which was actually written almost a decade before the first Ghost Rider film, was a hardcore, rated-R horror script and it was awesome.
“Then, in the time between that and the second movie, the script had been rewritten literally 14 times or 16 times or something like that to the point where it was kind of a mess. It was also just a little too clean and a little too restrained.
“If we had had the opportunity to do the original, rated-R Goyer script, I think that movie would’ve been a classic. I think the cast was really good and I think we got a lot of things right. I think the design of the character was fantastic. The way we did Ghost Rider as a tar-bubbling, black, charred creature was absolutely the right take on Ghost Rider.”
The rights to the Ghost Rider character reverted back to Marvel in 2013 and Gabriel Luna has now portrayed the Robbie Reyes incarnation as a recurring role in Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. since its fourth season.
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Taylor said he is disappointed by this take on the character and would like to see an edgier version of the Ghost Rider.
He said: “They’ve brought that character back on TV now and he looks like the clean, vanilla, G-rated character again. That version really has no interest for me, but I do think a scary, rated-R, horror superhero movie is an awesome thing that should be done and I wish that Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance had been it.”
Originally published March 5, 2018. Updated November 21, 2019.
