Marvel Studios announced the seventh project in the MCU’s supernatural corner during its return to San Diego Comic-Con. The studio’s July 25 Hall H presentation was its first in two years, and it covered plenty of ground, including new Avengers: Doomsday footage, a third Black Panther movie, an Avengers: Endgame theatrical re-release, and a surprise Deadpool cameo from Ryan Reynolds in the crowd. One announcement stood apart from the rest, though, because it revealed where the darker side of the Marvel Cinematic Universe goes next.
Kevin Feige confirmed on stage that a Ghost Rider movie is in development, with Ryan Gosling starring as Johnny Blaze. Shawn Levy, the director of Deadpool & Wolverine, will helm the film from a script by Jonathan Tropper, and it arrives in theaters in 2028.
Whichever host Gosling ends up playing, the character’s premise stays the same. Several people carried the Ghost Rider curse in the comics, including stunt motorcyclist Johnny Blaze and Danny Ketch.
Each one gets bound to a vengeful spirit and turns into a flaming-skulled avenger who punishes the wicked. That concept makes Ghost Rider a natural fit for the supernatural corner, the side of the MCU where science gives way to sorcery and horror creeps into the tone.
Ghost Rider hasn’t been on the big screen in years, so naturally this announcement got many MCU fans excited. Nicolas Cage played Johnny Blaze in two movies, released in 2007 and 2011, and Gabriel Luna later portrayed the Robbie Reyes version of the character in Agents of SHIELD.
The Spirit of Vengeance never headlined a Marvel Studios production until now. Gosling’s film joins six earlier projects that were announced as part of the MCU’s supernatural corner.
Every Project in the MCU’s Supernatural Corner
Doctor Strange
The supernatural corner of the MCU kickstarted in November 2016 with Doctor Strange. Scott Derrickson’s film cast Benedict Cumberbatch as Stephen Strange, a brilliant surgeon who ruins his hands in a car crash and travels to Kamar-Taj looking for a cure. He finds sorcery instead.
The movie introduced ideas the MCU still relies on today, such as the mystic arts and the Mirror Dimension, along with cosmic threats like Dormammu. Tilda Swinton’s Ancient One also established the network of sorcerers that later factored into Avengers: Infinity War and Spider-Man: No Way Home.
WandaVision
WandaVision moved this side of the MCU to television in January 2021. The first Marvel Studios series on Disney+ trapped Elizabeth Olsen’s Wanda Maximoff inside a sitcom of her own creation, with the town of Westview held hostage by her grief over Vision’s death.
The show introduced Kathryn Hahn’s Agatha Harkness and crowned Wanda as the Scarlet Witch. Its final scene showed her poring over the Darkhold, a thread the corner’s next chapter picked up immediately.
Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness
Sam Raimi carried his horror instincts into Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness in May 2022. The sequel sent Strange and America Chavez running across realities while a Darkhold-corrupted Wanda hunted them both.
No previous MCU theatrical release leaned this hard into horror. A decaying zombie Strange and the slaughter of the Illuminati made it the closest the franchise came to a full scary movie, and audiences showed up in good numbers. The sequel passed $950 million worldwide.
Werewolf by Night
Werewolf by Night arrived on Disney+ in October 2022 as the first Marvel Studios Special Presentation. Composer Michael Giacchino directed the black-and-white special, which starred Gael García Bernal as Jack Russell, a monster hunter hiding a curse of his own.
The one-off also introduced Laura Donnelly’s Elsa Bloodstone and gave Man-Thing his MCU debut. It remains the corner’s most direct tribute to classic monster movies.
Agatha All Along
Kathryn Hahn returned in September 2024 for Agatha All Along, a WandaVision spinoff that sent a coven down the fabled Witches’ Road. Joe Locke joined the MCU as Billy Maximoff, one of Wanda’s reborn sons, and Aubrey Plaza played the mysterious Rio Vidal, who turned out to be Death herself.
The series dug deeper into witchcraft than any Marvel project before it, and it ended with Agatha, now a ghost, guiding Billy on the search for his missing brother.
Blade?
Blade proves how badly things can stall in the MCU. Marvel Studios announced the vampire hunter’s reboot on the same Hall H stage in July 2019, with two-time Oscar winner Mahershala Ali in the lead role. A voice cameo in a credits scene of Eternals remains his only appearance.
The reboot cycled through directors and writers while release dates came and went. It eventually dropped off the calendar without filming a single scene. Days after the Ghost Rider reveal, Ali told GQ that he moved on from the project, saying, "If they wanted to do the movie, we would’ve done the movie." There's still a chance that Blade returns to the MCU in a potential Midnight Sons movie alongside Gosling's Blade,
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.
