Ghost Rider 2: 18 Possible Plots

Ghost Rider does Romania

The Plot: Sequel Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance is in production now, with Ol' Flamehead is due to be coming at us in 3D, and Cage has told MTV that it'll be filming in Romania: "I'll be filming it in Romania, which is exciting, since that's where Dracula's castle is. The Ghost Rider has to ride up to Dracula's castle."

The Villain: We'd love to see Johnny Blaze face off with the Count (Viggo Mortensen would top our dream cast wishlist).

Likelihood? The Ghost Rider character would gel perfectly with a bit of gothic vampirism, but we'll have to wait until a few more details leak out to be sure.

Ghost Rider: High Voltage

The Plot: Crank team Mark Neveldine and Brian Taylor are directing GR2 , and hopefully they'll give it the energy that the first one so desperately lacked. They could give Ghost Rider a mission that requires him to keep himself flatlined for the duration of the film so that he can walk between both worlds, including (hopefully) a scene of him being shagged to death in a public place.

The Villain: Mercenary Gunmetal Gray, played by the Stath.

Likelihood? Hopefully Neveldine and Taylor will put their own stamp on things, but they might be more likely to save this premise for Crank 3: Chev Goes To Hell .

Get Carter Slade

The Plot: Sam Elliot's Carter Slade (an early Ghost Rider) was one of the few successes of the original movie, able to bring a sense of dignity to even the flimsiest script. We sadly got only a brief glimpse of his enigmatic wisdom-giver. Put the Phantom Rider front and centre this time round, following him from his original Wild West pact with Mephistopheles to his outings on his flaming steed.

The Villain: Bring back Peter Fonda as Mephistopheles.

Likelihood? Sam Elliot rarely leaves the comfort of support roles, and we can't see the studio greenlighting this.

Ghost Rider 2099

The Plot: A sci-fi update of the GR story, based on the comic book series from the Marvel 2099 imprint. Kenshiro 'Zero' Cochrane is a hacker who injected himself into cyberspace after being chased down by an evil corporation. His personality was eventually found and put into a robotic Ghost Rider body in an attempt to fight 'the man'.

The Villain: 'The man' rebuilds one of Zero's fellow hackers, Warewolf, as, yes, a giant, bionic wolf.

Likelihood? There's potential for some amazing cyberpunk visuals, but Marvel will probably get The Avengers out of the way before they start tapping their 2099 line.

Johnny Blaze: The Teen Years

The Plot: Revisit the adolescent years that were skimmed over at the beginning of the first movie, and focus on the teen carny. See Blaze taken in by Roxanne's parents, and focus on his angst, (almost-incestual) love affair, and burgeoning stunt-riding career. Keep eerily accurate Eva Mendes lookalike Raquel Alessi, but recast Blaze (we reckon Jesse Eisenberg could do a decent young Cage).

The Villain: Blaze's own potent hormones.

Likelihood? It would be hard to convince anyone who's seen the first film that there is any interest to be mined from Blaze's youth.

Introducing Danny Ketch

The Plot: Blaze tracks down a new Ghost Rider on the streets of New York, believed to be a new incarnation of demon Zarathos. After hunting him down, he discovers that this rider is an innocent who has come into contact with the Spirit of Vengeance. Blaze then starts mentoring his younger counterpart.

The Villain: Faceless crims, with the focus on Blaze and Ketch teaming up to dish out retribution.

Likelihood? Mission: Impossible 4 is apparently hiring a young gun to make up for Cruise's diminishing vitality, Ghost Rider could do with a bit of freshness: Shia LaBeouf?

Champions of Los Angeles

The Plot: Ghost Rider heads to LA, and becomes part of a superhero team-up, although they don't exactly give The Avengers a run for their money. The gang is set up by X-Men 's Angel, lead by Black Widow, and also features Ice-Man, Black Goliath and Darkstar, though tensions within the group meant that Angel was eventually forced to disband the team.

The Villain: Titanium Man (think evil version of Iron Man). Cast an unknown as it'll be the hulking great suit that makes an impact.

Likelihood? The Champions would probably be best reserved in case Marvel need to go bigger for an Avengers sequel.

Revenge of Centurious

The Plot: Centurious was a prehistoric tribal prince who did battle with the demon Zarathos. Blaze discovers the souls of the two enemies within a soul crystal, and has to prevent them from re-establishing their feud in the modern day.

The Villain: Centurious has been using pastor Ethan Domblue, a sin-eater, as a pawn in his plans. Someone weak, slippery and sinister would be needed for the religious fanatic: Philip Seymour Hoffman would be superb.

Likelihood? A triple-threat of foes would give Ghost Rider the sense of urgency that he was lacking in Part One.

Deathwatch

The Plot: Nic Cage's Ghost Rider needs a truly badass villain: Wes Bentley's Blackheart brought absolutely no menace. Deathwatch could cure that: hailing from another dimension, he built up his power by draining the life force of humans, and then he set up a formidable crime empire, and sought to overthrow the Kingpin.

The Villain: Bring back Daredevil 's Michael Clarke Duncan as Kingpin, and go for a CGI-augmented Daniel Day-Lewis as Deathwatch.

Likelihood? Deathwatch would certainly get the fanboys salivating, but Marvel may not want any reminders of Daredevil or (shudder) Elektra .

Satan's Servants

The Plot: Johnny Blaze does the obvious and joins a motorcycle gang. After forming a bond with their leader, Curly Samuels, Ghosty is shocked to discover that Curly is his father, Barton Blaze. He finds out that Barton got a new life from Mephistopheles in exchange for promising to bring Ghost Rider back to hell. The pair have to deal with their father-son issues as well as the rearrival of the big bad.

The Villain: Get Chris Cooper to play Curly/Barton, rather than the cheap imitation they hired for Ghost Rider .

Likelihood? We'd file this under 'don't count on it'.

Highway to Hell

The Plot: Johnny Blaze heads down to the fiery deep to catch up with Mephistopheles, and attempt to finish him off for good. What Blaze doesn't realise though, is that he has been drawn down to hell as part of a cunning ploy on Satan's part, as he intends to hitch a ride back to Earth with Ghost Rider.

The Villain: Satan himself would take lead villain duties, so give Mark Strong a call if he's not too busy.

Likelihood? There must be a fairly decent chance that Ghost Rider'll head back to hell as some point, as long as the budget can handle it.

Witch Woman

The Plot: Picking up directly where the original left off, Johnny Blaze is on the open road, and he heads for America's southwest. Blaze faces a challenge in the form of the local Witch Woman, satanist Linda Littletrees, as well as the constant threat of the re-emergence of Mephistopheles.

The Villain: As a fire-manipulator and dealer with Satan, Linda has much in common with Ghost Rider, making her a somewhat sexy foil for Blaze. Cast Salma Hayek for maximum voluptuousness.

Likelihood? Eva Mendes has confirmed that she'll not return , so they'll need to restore the gender balance.

Nightmare

The Plot: Johnny Blaze has to take on the dream-twisting demon Nightmare, who can torture souls by drawing them into his dream realm. Ghost Rider has to bring down the elusive ne'er-do-well by entering into his warped dreamscape. It'd also be a chance to introduce Dr Strange, who could give some assistance to Blaze.

The Villain: As Marvel don't mind one actor taking on multiple roles (Chris Evans as The Human Torch and Captain America), one-time Nightcrawler Alan Cumming would fit Nightmare.

Likelihood? It might be too close to Inception for comfort, though it would give the Crank guys the chance to let rip.

Revelations

The Plot: Ghost Rider heads to Montana to investigate a spate of deaths, seemingly caused by flesh-eating ghosts. As he delves further into the gruesome mystery, he comes to realise he's stumbled into a far bigger conspiracy than he had imagined.

The Villain: Blaze ends up on the trail of Zadkiel, a rogue angel who waged war on Heaven from within. Turns out Ghost Rider has a grudge to bear against the heavenly creature (who'd have to be either a wrestler in a suit or fully-CG).

Likelihood? It'd offer up the chance to go epic, but are CGI thesps or former-wrestlers ever great as bad guys? Tough call.

World War Hulk

The Plot: Giving Mark Ruffalo the chance to star as the Hulk before reporting for duty on The Avengers , he takes the lead as the big, green fella, who returns to Earth seeking vengeance on the Illuminati after they propelled him into space. In an attempt to stop Hulk's blowout, a number of superheroes attempt to calm him down, including Ghost Rider.

The Villain: Though Hulk is the main antagonist, he is right to be angry at the Illuminati (another superhero team-up).

Likelihood? Ghost Rider takes a pretty small role in World War Hulk , so he'd feel like a supporting character in his own movie.

Ghost Rider: Tokyo

The Plot: Heading to downtown Tokyo and ditching Nic Cage, the sequel could focus on Japanese Ghost Rider Yoshio Kannabe. The Asian influence could extend to the action set pieces, as the Ghost Rider comes to terms with his powers and dispenses his own brand of justice on the streets of Tokyo.

The Villain: In the comics, a misunderstanding sees Kannabe baying for Danny Ketch's blood; for the movie we'd probably have him taking down a Yakuza clan.

Likelihood? Though Neveldine and Taylor would probably love to run riot in Japan, they'd probably only head there with Johnny Blaze.

Nuns lots of nuns

The Plot: Johnny Blaze is called into action to help out the gun-toting guardians of Heaven, the Gun Nuns. The white-clad, kick-ass chicks need the Ghost Rider's help to deal with a seemingly insurmountable threat.

The Villain: A triptych of titans to take on: former stunt-biker Orb, mysterious Deathwatch-henchman Blackout, and claw-handed ex-cop Vengeance.

Likelihood? Neveldine and Taylor must surely be tempted by the Gun Nuns…

Ghost Riders: Unite!

The Plot: Blaze has to join forces with a number of ghost-riding allies from across the globe in an attempt to bring down an unimaginably large enemy. Blaze's colleagues include Ghost Flyer, Knuckles O'Shaugnessy, Devil Rig, and Hell-Driver (basically Ghost Riders in different vehicles).

The Villain: It'd need to be an epic task to bring them all together, with perhaps Zadkiel and Mephistopheles joining forces to destroy the boundaries between heaven and Earth.

Likelihood? There's a fair chance that another rider will at least get a nod in the next movie.

Matt Maytum is the former Editor of Total Film magazine. Over the past decade, Matt has worked in various roles for TF online and in print, including at GamesRadar+. Bucket-list-ticking career highlights have included reporting from the set of Tenet and Avengers: Infinity War, as well as covering Comic-Con, TIFF and the Sundance Film Festival.