One of the writers behind Nicolas Cage’s Ghost Rider movies had some advice for Ryan Gosling’s upcoming Marvel reboot. Scott M. Gimple co-wrote Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance, the sequel that gave Cage his final outing as Johnny Blaze before the character’s film rights returned to Marvel Studios. The movie was ultimately a flop, struggling to ignite excitement with audiences both critically and commercially. This did not stop Gimple though, who later became chief content officer of AMC’s Walking Dead universe, and he is still paying close attention to where the flaming skull goes next.
Speaking with The Direct at Multicon 2026, Scott M. Gimple looked back on the film he scripted with fellow writer Seth Hoffman for Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance and weighed in on what the new version should try to shoot for success. His advice comes down to a tone that would push the Spirit of Vengeance somewhere darker than either of Cage’s movies did:
The Direct: You wrote Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance, and I'm sure you've seen the news that there is now a new Ghost Rider movie on. I'm curious what your thoughts are, and what do you think that film will be able to do that maybe you weren't able to do at your time when you were making that film?
Scott M. Gimple: "I’ll say this: TV is a writer’s medium. A showrunner is really driving the vision of a show. Films are directors. Directors are kind of the showrunners of film, and that was directed by a duo, [Mark] Neveldine and [Brian] Taylor, and they took the ball and ran with it, and they had a really signature voice and a signature style, and they took what we did and they ran with it, and made it their own. And it was wild and crazy, and there were things in there that absolutely blew me away. There’s absolutely things that we did that were in there, but screenwriting: different beast."
From there, he made his pitch for the reboot. Pointing to his comic book roots, Gimple said he would love to see the character’s modern era on screen, calling a grittier take "an interesting play to make:"
"So, I’m very much one step back, and as a fan, I think the frenetic craziness of that movie was cool, but I read comics and came up from comics, and I think... Ghost Rider’s a very interesting character in its evolution, and even in its last 10 to 20 years, so different from when it began. And it’s a different Ghost Rider. I would love to see the more recent expression of Ghost Rider, like the last 10, 20, years. It’s a little more gritty. It’s a little more serious. I think that would be an interesting play to make. I think it’s all great, but they’ve already done the bigger, louder, crazier one. To do the Nine Inch Nails version, I think that that could be cool."
The comics support Gimple's case. Marvel pushed Johnny Blaze deeper into horror territory over the past decade. Benjamin Percy’s 2022 series, for example, places Blaze in a seemingly perfect small town, oblivious to the sinister forces at play.
Marvel Studios made the reboot official during its Hall H panel at San Diego Comic-Con in July, where Gosling took the stage to confirm that he will portray Ghost Rider in a solo film arriving in 2028. Shawn Levy will direct, reuniting the star with his Star Wars: Starfighter director and writer. Gosling told the crowd he had wanted the part for a very long time, and Levy revealed that the two had begun trading Ghost Rider ideas while shooting the Star Wars movie together.
A Gritty Ghost Rider Would Give the MCU Its Much-Needed Second R-Rated Film
Two years after Deadpool & Wolverine, the MCU still has a single R-rated movie in its library, and Marvel currently doesn’t have a second on the cards now that Mahershala Ali's Blade movie is dead. That should change, and Gimple’s comments are proof that Marvel now has the right candidate.
Deadpool & Wolverine earned $1.34 billion worldwide and passed Joker to become the highest-grossing R-rated film in history. This is proof that general audiences love a good R-rated story.
Ghost Rider suits an R rating better than almost any character Marvel owns. Deadpool needed the rating for jokes and gore, but Ghost Rider needs it for dread, which is scary. His whole premise centers on damnation. The Johnny Blaze iteration is a stunt rider who sold his soul to the devil and now punishes the guilty with hellfire and a stare that makes them relive every hurt they ever caused. Cage’s movies sanded that down to a PG-13 twice, and the concept never caught fire the way it should have. Ditching this rating could help to avoid Gosling's Ghost Rider from falling into the same trap that Spirit of Vengeance did.
Marvel trusted Shawn Levy with its first R-rated film, and he returned a record-breaker. Despite that film's mature tone, it still reached a broader audience. Now Levy is the one putting Gosling on the bike, and the duo could recreate that sort of magic. No rating exists for the 2028 film yet, and nothing guarantees Marvel will go there, but there’s a good chance the studio will give the director the leeway to pursue a much grittier Ghost Rider.
Geraldo Amartey is a writer at The Direct. He joined the team in 2025, bringing with him four years of experience covering entertainment news, pop culture, and fan-favorite franchises for sites like YEN, Briefly and Tuko.
