[Editor’s note: The following story contains spoilers for ‘Deadpool & Wolverine.’]
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“Deadpool & Wolverine” features plenty of celebrities reprising their roles as forgotten superheroes of yesteryear. But if Ryan Reynolds had his way, the band of outcasts would have also featured Nicolas Cage’s Ghost Rider.
Reynolds told Collider that Cage returning as Ghost Rider was among his dream list of cameos for the multiverse film. When asked if Cage was among those he reached out to to star, Reynolds said, “Yes,” and added, “Came to a conversation for sure. Yeah, but no.”
Cage led 2007 film “Ghost Rider” and its 2012 sequel “Spirit of Vengeance.”
Without Ghost Rider, “Deadpool & Wolverine” instead marked the return of Chris Evans’s Johnny Storm, Jennifer Garner’s Elektra, and Wesley Snipes’ Blade. Evans played Storm in 2005’s “Fantastic Four” and the 2007 sequel “Rise of the Silver Surfer,” while Garner appeared in 2003’s “Daredevil” and 2005’s “Elektra.” Snipes iconically led the “Blade” trilogy from 1998 to 2004.
In addition to the Fox and Sony franchise returns, Channing Tatum finally played Gambit after his stop-start delay on getting a standalone film greenlit. Henry Cavill also was cast as a Wolverine variant to Hugh Jackman; Cavill famously exited from playing Superman in 2023.
Director Shawn Levy told Variety that the cameos were hand-selected.
“With pretty much no exceptions, every surprise casting in this movie came down to Ryan or I reaching out to the actor before lawyers and before agents [were involved],” Levy said. “It literally was us asking and invariably people saying ‘yes.'”
Along with Cage, Ben Affleck was also on the cameo list. Affleck previously played Daredevil opposite Garner’s Elektra.
“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,” Levy said. “We made contact with everyone featured in the Fox tribute reel halfway through our end credits — and that’s dozens of actors who have been a part of that legacy. That was fun to build a love letter to those years, those characters, and all the actors who played them.”
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Levy also revealed that he was among the directors who almost made Tatum’s Gambit film.
“I am obsessed with Channing as Gambit in this movie. What went into this, first and foremost, is a decade of Channing wanting to play this part and a decade of Channing almost playing this part at Fox. I know this personally because back in those years, I was one of 25 different directors who met with Channing about directing the Fox ‘Gambit’ movie, and yet it never quite happened,” Levy said. “So when we decided to have Gambit in this movie, we knew it would be deeply gratifying for Channing.”
As for the Ghost Rider legacy, Cage himself told Yahoo! Entertainment in 2018 that the films would have done better at the box office had they followed in the vein of “Deadpool.”
“Had ‘Ghost Rider’ been made in R-rated format, the way they had the guts to do with ‘Deadpool,’ and they did it again today, I’m fairly certain it would be enormously successful,” Cage said at the time. “Having said that, I still think the movies were a hit. People don’t look at the subsidiary outlets, like DVD and streaming and whatnot. When you look at what Mark Neveldine and Brian Taylor did [on ‘Spirit of Vengeance’] for $50 million, and they got a $250 million return, you begin to see the genius of the sequel.”
He continued, “The problem is, it’s very hard to take a family of children to a movie — and they made it a PG-13 movie — about a superhero who, oh, by the way, also happens to have sold his soul to Satan. It’s not the] most commercial concept or vehicle. But it certainly is the most interesting, and the most thought-provoking. I think if you look back on the movies today, they age well.”
Meanwhile, it’s been rumored that Ghost Rider will ride again , this time with a new actor in Cage’s place: Ryan Gosling.
The Oscar-nominated actor has voiced his desire to play Ghost Rider in the MCU, telling MTV News’ Josh Horowitz that the character is his ideal superhero role. “Happy Sad Confused” podcast host Horowitz tweeted that Gosling clarified that he would want to play Ghost Rider at some point.
“Ryan and I chatted about the Nova rumors yesterday which he said aren’t true,” Horowitz wrote. “BUT this morning Ryan reached out to me to say there is one superhero he wants to play…GHOST RIDER.”
Gosling’s real-life wife Eva Mendes co-starred with Cage in the aforementioned two Fox films.
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