Ghost Rider 2 moving forward

It’s been three years and counting since Columbia Pictures managed to make a sizeable hit out of the not-very-good Ghost Rider. Starring Nicolas Cage with his head on fire, the film poured over 0m in the studio’s coffers, and there’s been on-off talk about a sequel ever since.

What’s sped things up is the chance that Columbia may see its rights to make another film revert to Marvel/Disney if it doesn’t get its skates on, and thus it’s got a script in place. It’s been penned by David Goyer (Blade Trilogy, Batman Begins), and assuming scheduling can be sorted out, Nicolas Cage is believed to be interested in returning to the title role.

However, there’s the small matter of the search for a director. Original helmer Mark Steven Johnson won’t be back, that much is certain. And thus Columbia is now believed to have turned to the brains behind the Crank franchise – co-directors Brian Taylor and Mark Neveldine – to take over. Heat Vision reports that the pair are now in negotiations, and we’d assume that pre-production at least would start this year.

Where that leaves the mooted Crank 3D remains to be seen…