Director Brian Taylor talks up Ghost Rider 2

Brian Taylor, who is directing Ghost Rider 2: Spirit of Vengeance with his long-time collaborator Mark Neveldine, has spoken reassuringly about the pair's approach to the comic-book follow-up.

The Crank directors have recently finished shooting the movie, and Taylor found time for a chat with Think Hero.

On their approach to the sequel of a distinctly disappointing original, Taylor said: “We basically said, we want to do it, [would] absolutely love to do it, but it’s gotta be 100% different from the first movie, everything, except for Nic.

"We want the character to look different, feel different, sound different. The backstory of the character’s different, the origin of the story is expanded upon in ways that the first movie didn’t hint at, at all.

"The location’s different, the whole cast is different; the only thing that’s the same is Nic…It’s pretty much a reboot, only with the same actor, which makes it: a requel. Or a seboot, I can’t decide which one I like better."

On what attracted him to the project, Taylor said: "The first attraction was Nic and the second was the character and just how cool it could be. [I wanted to] kinda make the Ghost Rider movie that I wished I had seen before."

He also spoke about Ghost Rider 2 's budget: "The reports of the budget of Ghost Rider have been greatly exaggerated. It’s about the same as [ Gamer ]. We didn’t have a lot of money to make this film…but we’re pretty creative. It’s gonna look fuckin’ huge."

Taylor also briefly talked up the sequel's villain, Blackout (Johnny Whitworth), and announced the new-look Ghost Rider would be revealed at Comic-Con: "[Blackout’s] a fun character. His powers are pretty cool, we did things with his powers that aren’t in the original comic books.

"We’re gonna do a huge splash at the Comic-Con. That’s when we really want people to see what the new, evolved Ghost Rider looks like as well as the first peeks at the villains."

Here's hoping that Taylor and Neveldine will give the character the big-screen outing he deserves, after the first movie was fluffed in an epic way by Mark Steven Johnson.

With Nic Cage back in the saddle, and the energy of the Crank team in the engine, this has every reason to be awesome…

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.