11mo ago

Ryan Reynolds Reveals Nicolas Cage Almost Reprised This Iconic Marvel Role in ‘Deadpool & Wolverine’

Ryan Reynolds Reveals Nicolas Cage Almost Reprised This Iconic Marvel Role in ‘Deadpool & Wolverine’ [Exclusive]

Heading into a conversation with Reynolds and Levy following the release of the movie, Collider’s editor-in-chief Steve Weintraub came prepared with a multitude of questions, including one about a fan-favorite face who was MIA. That ex-member of Sony’s wing of Marvel was Nicolas Cage’s Ghost Rider. When asked if the team had ever thought of bringing Cage in to reprise his role as Ghost Rider, Reynolds gave a simple, “Yes,” adding that things “Came to a conversation for sure. Yeah, but no.” For a man known for his outgoing personality, Reynolds kept a pretty tight lip on further details surrounding the interaction with the legendary movie star.
This point doesn’t really need much of an explanation. It obviously would’ve been really rad to have seen Cage revving up his bike and raising holy hell in Deadpool & Wolverine. Plus, unlike some other movies that fell outside the MCU umbrella, the Ghost Rider series was largely well received by the fandom. And, because Reynolds doesn’t go into detail, we’ll never truly know what stopped Cage from hopping back into the role of Johnny Blaze. There are likely a multitude of reasons surrounding the missed-out-on cameo, but we can’t help thinking about how unhappy the Face/Off actor was with his brief appearance in last summer’s The Flash as the Tim Burton Superman who never was. Who knows, maybe that experience officially soured him on similar opportunities for good.

In an interview with Variety, Shawn Levy goes into a lot of detail about how the cameos came about, including:

Since he’s named-checked, was Ben Affleck ever in talks to return as Daredevil?
Early on, when we were looking at a 70-name menu of Marvel characters, Daredevil was on one of those lists, but never since those earliest of conversations, and never to the point of outreach or offers or anything like that.

So a lot of characters were considered.

3 comments

For a man known for his outgoing personality, Reynolds kept a pretty tight lip on further details surrounding the interaction with the legendary movie star.
It is always possible his Flash cameo has soured him on such things but Cage has spoken about Deadpool and it's R rating before, so he must have known he'd be in safer hands.
An alternative explanation may be that GR is set on Earth 616 and they'll have Cage come back to pass the mantle to a younger character. Appearing in DP might confuse matters. So, in-universe, Ghost Rider was never sent to The Void, he's still in play.
Maybe they're saving him for Secret Wars.
- It definitely feels like they might have plans for Cage's GR. He has said how he'd return to the role and it would be odd to turn down a D&W cameo. It's also unusual for Reynolds to not go into details, he may just not want to be putting words in Cage's mouth but it does feel like there is more to this. Although, it doesn't specify that the conversation was with Cage. I imagine they drew up that big list and ran it last Fiege first, then whittled it down further, then started calling people.
  I expect Cage to be asked in a future interview but if there are plans but if there are he may be... cagey.