INT: Mark Steven Johnson

There’s been a lot
of discussion about GHOST
RIDER over the past few years, especially with all its
delays. But what’s really been going on with it? Well,
JoBlo.com
was recently given the opportunity to have a sit down with the very
cool director Mark Steven Johnson (DAREDEVIL), as well as big-time
Marvel producers Avi Arad (SPIDER-MAN 3, IRON MAN) and Gary Foster
(THE SCORE, DAREDEVIL), to help clear some of the air.

The movie stars Nicolas Cage as Johnny Blaze, a stunt motorcyclist who sells his soul and becomes the devil’s bounty hunter. Add in Eva Mendes as the hottie love interest, Wes Bentley as the devil’s son, and a flame-covered motorcycle, and you’ve got yourself the latest comic book movie to hit the big screen. The film opens on Friday, February 16th.

Mark
Steven Johnson

The
trailer says, “He made a deal to save somebody he loved.”
And it looks like they’re talking about Eva Mendes even though it’s
not her. Why not just say, “He made a deal to save his
father?”

Avi
Arad: I think that those who are from the uber-geek universe will
immediately know that he did it to save his dad. When we make movies
like this the idea is to get more people initiated. If you remember
when this Marvel journey started, there were only three of us
watching these movies. So in order to get to where we are today, at
least from a marketing and advertising standpoint, we want to open
it. And of course, Roxanne is part of his love and part of his
aspirations and part of his pain, so it all makes sense.

So
it’s intentionally vague?

Mark
Steven Johnson: Yeah.

Gary
Foster: Yes.

Arad

: Whenever it’s
vague, it’s intentional. [Laughter]

As
far as the evolution of comic book movies, what’s gotten better?

Johnson:
The CGI. You know, its one of those things where there’s so much
negativity on the internet, and that’s for any filmmaker or any
musician or any artist at all… But the great thing is that, for
me, is that I go onto a site like Superhero Hype or some of the
comic sites and you read about what people say and sometimes they’re
right. It’s like a free test screening in a way. So we put up the
skull a year and half a year ago at the earliest stage, and
everybody was like, “Skull looks fake. It looks terrible.”
You know, that’s our lead character. If he doesn’t look good,
you’re sunk, from the very beginning. Because at least you gotta get
that right. So that was the hardest thing, was getting that skull
and that CG fire to look right, and the time really helped.

Foster:
Yeah, and on the fire front of it, they started the process with a
certain program to build the fire and it was 75 percent of what we
wanted it to be, and they had to completely go in from scratch and
rewrite it and reprogram it. That took time. We had months to go in
and reanimate the entire fire. And by the way, we got it to 100
percent. Stuff looks spectacular.

Arad:
This kind of movie is difficult even for the studio, believe it or
not, because when we look at [the early footage], we know where
there will be a visual effect. We know eventually we will have it,
but fire is tricky. Like the first drop of water to be designed or
what you’ll see next in spider-man with a grain of sand… fire, to
control fire, is an algorithm, it’s high math, and there is such
passion for this character. And especially for this movie, there was
no patience out there. And you have to start showing things, but the
truth is that movies like that, when you see them with no visual
designs, it can be really scary to the uninitiated. “What
happens next?” And then you see it. Then all of a sudden you
say, “Oh my god, that really comes together.” That’s
always a challenge for us.

Johnson:
It’s a frustrating thing, because I don’t know if you remember,
but at our first comic con we showed a teaser, and there’s a shot of
Ghost Rider turning towards the camera. And it was a grip – a test
with one of the grips. He turns in, and we just wanted to see how it
would look. And obviously, it was just that. That’s as far as it
was supposed to go. And I said, “Please don’t let this go on
the internet. Because someone will freeze-frame it, and they’ll
study it.”

And
they said, “Oh, no, no. This is just for the comic con.”
And sure enough, the company who put the teaser together
– who did a great job – put it on the site to show off what
they had done. And that’s it; once it’s on the internet you can
never get it back. So everybody’s looking at this grip turning
towards the camera, and you wanna tell everybody, “No, that’s
not it! That’s just a test!” So it’s frustrating, but in this
case, its really rewarding because, a great CG character – I put
Gollum and Davey Jones as two of the best – they’re great because
they’ve got eyes, wrinkles, lips, tongue… we don’t have
anything. We just got a blank slate. So the fire was really
important to become an extension of his personality. That’s what
took so long.

Was
an x-ray of Nic’s skull really used for Rider?

Johnson:
Yeah, that’s his skull. Isn’t that cool? It’s a weird thing,
but we really wanted to make sure that it didn’t become one of
those CG movies where you don’t feel it anymore; it feels so fake.
I think you feel Nic in there. It’s Nic’s voice treated, it’s Nic’s
skull, and its Nic’s body movements, in the big emotional scenes,
and I think it helps. You’re not just seeing a CG character; you’re
seeing Nic.

Did
Nic want to do all of his own stunts, like with the motorcycle?

Johnson:
Yeah, he did. He wanted to do as much as he could.

Foster:
This is where Avi and I came in and said, “You can’t do that.”

Johnson:
Actually, the only one who was riding crazy was [Peter] Fonda.

Yeah,
and he did EASY RIDER. So some of us are waiting for Fonda, the
devil, to ride a motorcycle against Cage.

Johnson:
That would’ve been cool, right? That would’ve been awesome. I
think we border on camp anyway; we just wanted to have fun. We had a
lot of laughs and scares, but it was always that line of what’s too
much. If the devil would’ve been on a bike, I think it would’ve
been pushing it. We had a great line, during his introduction, he’s
walking through the carnival, and at the end there’s this big
funhouse with a big devil face, and it’s his face. And he says,
“far out.” And I cut it. I was really in defense of it. We
were on the fence, and I ultimately decided we were just meeting
him; we probably shouldn’t defang him. We should keep a little
threat.

What
kind of CGI was used for Nic’s shirtless scene?

Foster:
Zero.

Johnson:
I know, right? And people keep asking, is that really his body? And
Nic goes, “Why did I bother? Two hours everyday, I’m working
out, and that’s what they say. You got Adaptation where my gut’s
hanging out, and nobody asks if that’s really my body.”
[Laughter]

Any
plans for a sequel?

Johnson:
We just started talking about it, to be honest. When we were in
Europe last week, we started talking about ideas, but you don’t
want to jinx it. You never know what’s gonna happen, or how it’s
gonna go, or if people are gonna like it. It’s not a slam-dunk
character, its not as well known as the other ones. But I know if
people want it, we’d love to do another one.

You
have a Director’s Cut of Daredevil out on DVD. Is there any similar
situation for Ghost Rider?

Johnson:
No. I think there’ll be an extended version. Just longer. I’m not
calling it better. They’re just really good scenes I cut for pacing.
But no, certainly, there’s no Daredevil, where there’s a quarter of
the movie missing.

Is
that because you knew what would actually make it in and what
wouldn’t?

Johnson:
Well, I think for me, it was that having partners in the studio –
who had so much success with Spider-Man – that trust the character.
And having Nic, who’s a huge fan. I set out to make a gothic
western. Something really different. Something I’d fall in love with
like when I was 12, watching monster movies and reading comic books.
And that’s what we did, so you don’t have those conversations up
front with the studio saying, “Does it have to be a flaming
skull?”

Well,
now they’re talking about not screening the film in advance for
critics–

Johnson:
–which they are, by the way.

–are
you at all nervous about it?

Johnson:
No, I’m not at all. I love this movie. And Nic does too. They
retracted that, by the way. That was one guy in the New York Post
blog, said that. And everybody picked it up as fact, and it’s not.
So now they’ve all retracted it. Which really pisses me off,
because you work so hard on something, and if someone doesn’t like
it, that’s cool. You know, say whatever you want about it, but at
least see it. Don’t rip into something that anyone does before you
at least give it a chance.

When
did the character get its start for a film adaptation?

Arad:
Mike Deluca, one of the producers, got involved, and we actually
wrote the spec script out of film school. And it went through
different reincarnations, and once Mark [Johnson] got involved, we
felt that in order to spread the word – because the character’s
amazing – we looked around and we said, can we make it a pg-13
movie? Is there a reason to take it to a place where not enough
people can see it? And that was the big advantage when you have a
writer/director who’s a giant fan and wouldn’t write it just to
take it out of the art. Because the story itself, there’s no reason
not to be accessible to all. And that’s when it got the energy,
and then Nic got involved, and we were – as a team -we already made
a movie together. It just got going, and once we came to Sony, I
think everybody understood the visual opportunity and challenge.

Wasn’t
that why you couldn’t do it before, because of the advanced CGI?

Arad:
Absolutely, but at the time, we didn’t even understand how big a
challenge it would be. We thought, “Well, we’ll take a skull
and put it around fire.” And actually, we did. And then you
realize, fire isn’t really exciting unless u manipulate it. It’s
been – I don’t know – ten years, since it started. But these kind
of projects take time, when the technology cannot support the story.

And
in reference to the story, what kind of tone were you going for?

Johnson:
You know, there’s two ways to go with a movie like this, and they’re
both valid. You can go super dark and gritty, like a horror movie,
and it’d be great. Or you can just embrace the absurdity of the
idea, and I mean absurdity in a good way. Lets just go out there,
let’s make it everything; pull out all stops.

Like
with the goth chick, poking fun at the flaming skull…

Johnson:
I love that chick.

Arad:
She’s amazing.

Johnson:
There’s like fansites. “We hate the goth chick!” But I
love that. I love that people are actually having a discussion about
her. I mean, she’s in every trailer, so it looks like she’s
costarring in the movie when she’s just got one scene.

What
did you and Nic work on with the writing?

Johnson:
What he would do is challenge when the writing got lazy. Sometimes
it did. It’s easy to fall into clichés when doing a movie like
this. And I had written [Johnny Blaze] as more of a Jack Daniels
drinking, chain smoking, cursed kind of character. And Nic has a way
of looking at things that sometimes people think is just quirky, but
it’s actually really honest. Because I think people are weird. We’re
all very weird. And I think when we see someone do something
that’s weird but honest we like them. We kinda get it.

And
Nic said to me, and he’s right, “I don’t know anybody who
drinks Jack Daniels out of a bottle. Do you?” And I’m thinking,
“No, I don’t. But they’re always in the movies.” I mean,
who does that? Really? And he goes, “Well, I like jelly beans.
And I think that if you’re under a curse – if you really believe
that the devil might be in your life – why would you invite him in
by getting drunk?” You wouldn’t. You know, you wouldn’t
listen to Black Sabbath; you wouldn’t do those things. You’d make
things as peaceful as you could.

So
that became the Karen Carpenter music and the jellybeans; things
that would make you feel good. And then when things go crazy, it’s
more exciting. The other big one I think is the transformation,
which I think is great. I just wrote pain, just screaming and pain,
making it a horror show. And he said, and he’s right, “It’s
painful for Johnny, but it feels good for the Ghost Rider.” I
think that scene is disturbing because you see him go from screaming
in pain to laughing – just maniacal laughter – and that’s what makes
it so weird. That’s a Nic Cage thing.