Is he really doing his Elvis voice in the trailer? My god, that’s disappointing. I was kinda looking forward to seeing the movie, but if it’s gonna be two hours of that noise I don’t think so.
I thought it was a poor choice because it’ll obviously be a one picture deal.
I’ll watch it. I’m doubtful that it will be good, but I can remain hopeful.
I don’t know, my memory not so good- was Ghost Rider a balding 45 year old with love handles?
I am really looking forward to it,but did a “Whaaaat” when I heard it was Cage as Blaze.Then again,I thought the same thing casting Affleck as Daredevil and he wasn’t horrible,not great,but ok.
You and I are in the minority here - I agree with you. In fact, I enjoyed the film.
The casting of this film should not be our greatest concern as to its quality. Our greatest concern should be that the director is the same prat who previously made Simon Birch and Daredevil.
Somebody stop him before he directs again.
I’m in that group as well. Matt Damon would have been a better Matt Murdock but Affleck did okay. And the movie isn’t all bad.
I’m looking forward to Ghost Rider. I like that they seem to be acknowledging that Cage is old in the movie (“You’re the grandaddy of Extreme sports”). Its not going to be great… it most likely will be passable.
My major issue is that it takes place in a city. Ghost Rider works best, especially the Johnny Blaze GR, in a badlands, ‘out west’ locations where the Ghost Rider has some mythic qualities.
The villains seems pretty uninspired as well. It is in the realm of the Constantine bad guys in trenchcoats. Apparently Marvel’s scarecrow will appear (he has an action figure in the movie toy line) which might be moderately interesting.
I never realized that Marvel had a Scarecrow villain, too, so I checked him out on Wikipedia. At the end of his article, I found this:
I like how it sounds like the action figure released a press statement, or something.
I’ve only seen the TV commercials so actually not even the full trailer and I have no quibble with the way Cage looks in the role. But the pseudo-Elvis voice didn’t work for me when he unleashed it in Wild at Heart and it’s not working for me now.
Cage is not doing a pseudo Elvis, he’s doing a “southern” accent. It just so happens that Elvis was also from the south.
I’m not sold on Nic Cage for few reasons, though I have to reserve any real judgement til after I see the movie.
For some weird reason, I seem to care that Johnny Blaze’s hair color is reddish/blondish. For an some unknown reason, Cage doesn’t “look” like a “Johnny” to me, (I know, that’s crazy). I also seem to want to see a younger actor because of the father-figure relationship the original character had with his mentor, the man Blaze sold his soul to save.
I know Nicholas Cage (who adopted his name after Marvel’s Luke Cage character) has been jonesing for a comic book movie for a while, I guess this may be where they stuck him after seeing that he would be even less appropriate for any of their other properties (though I think he would have made a great Frank Castle).
Ultimately though, I agree with concern over the director credit. Mark Steven Johnson and Tim Story seem to be in a race to see who can waste more opportunities on Marvel movies.
To jump on the hijack, I think Brad Pitt would have made the best Matt Murdock. The movie Sleepers portrays Hell’s Kitchen portrayal and features a courtroom drama that the Daredevil movie should have cribbed.
My top choice for Daredevil/Murdock was Guy Pearce, until he said in an interview a few years ago that he was too serious of an actor to make comic book movies. I wish I had a cite or an exact quote. But then Guy made The Time Machine, a benchmark all actors of his oh-so-serious caliber should aspire to, and it bombed. Matt Damon and Brad Pitt could’ve pulled it off too, though. Good ideas.
I did not hate the Daredevil movie, but I think the script and the casting of Affleck and Jennifer Garner were the weakest points. I think Frank Miller’s early '90s miniseries Daredevil: The Man Without Fear should have been adapted for the screen, as it was basically a retelling and update of his origin story anyway. I thought Michael Clarke Duncan was inspired casting for the Kingpin, although it brought out some unsettling subtle and not-so-subtle racism on most of the comic book message boards.
As for Ghost Rider, I like Cage, even in his sillier action roles like Con Air and Face/Off, and I’m glad he finally gets to star in a comic book movie. But I’m most excited about seeing Sam Elliott as the “Old West Ghost Rider,” or whoever he plays who looks like that.
I still stand by my position from way back when.
I have a problem (as much as this can be considered a problem. It’s a just a movie after all) with Duncan playing the Kingpin. It would be equivalent to casting a white actress as Storm in the X-men. Which no one would dare do.
What are you talking about? They cast Halle Berry, didn’t they? 
I second the notion about Daredevil. Kingpin and Bullseye made the film good, and the “heroes” kinda sucked. Not bad, but not great.
Well, part of Storm’s origin is in fact that she’s black. Well, sub-Saharan African. It’s part of why she got into the X-Men in the first place: Xavier felt he needed a more global team in order to gain acceptance worldwide. And in any case, Halle Berry is hardly any more black than Ben Stiller, and much less “black” than Storm.
But Fisk/Kingpin’s nationality has nothing to do with his persona or background. Apart from not having an English accent, Mr. Duncan was fantastic as a brutal, yet cultured - thug yet gentleman.
I would like to see Cage as Nick Fury. He has the acting chops and physique that he actually could do it, and the role permits somewhat more latitude than, say, Hulk or Superman.
Good lord, can you imagine the outcry if Cameron Diaz or Gwyneth Paltrow would have been cast as Storm? Tho I like Duncan in almost all his roles he was certainly the wrong choice and color for The Kingpin.
To further hijack the thread,I thought Eric Stoltz would have been perfect as Matt Murdock.
Agreed – it’s an integral part of Storm’s character that she was African, and had been worshipped as a goddess there before Xavier recruited her. I always said Angela Bassett was BORN to play Storm, but the studio wanted a younger cast and a hotter Storm, so we got stuck with Halle.
It really doesn’t matter what race the Kingpin is, considering he was a poor kid from a crime-ridden part of New York City, who rose up through the ranks of organized crime due to his brains and brutality to emerge on top of the underworld. White or black wouldn’t make a difference there, and truthfully, I can’t think of a white actor who could match Fisk’s immense size, intimidating nature, strength, and machivellian intelligence. Maybe some wrestler could have looked the part, but Duncan is actually a good actor.
And as for Nick Fury, Cage would have to be better than David Hasselhoff, although I imagine an older, more grizzled Fury – someone like Clint Eastwood in his Dirty Harry prime, or maybe even modern-day Bruce Campbell at his most hardcore.
Well it sort of does. The Kingpin is THE Kingpin. He’s the Kingpin of Crime… of modern day NEW YORK. He’s supposed to be the untouchable uber-mobster. He’s the MAN.
James Gandolfini should have been the Kingpin.
Edited to add- In the movie I thought they handled him being somewhat unlikely as the Kingpin fairly well. They established that he was the chief bruiser for the old boss and took his place.
And Storm being black had nothing to do with her role in the films. So a white actress could have easily been cast by the same rationale as Duncan as Kingpin.
Not nearly a big enough dude. Kingpin is almost inhumanly gigantic. Hell, Michael Clark Duncan was still too small for the role. I can’t really think of an actor who’s physically bigger than him who can still act, though, so I think he makes the best choice.
Also, casting Gandolfini as a mobster would be too much of cliche after his breakout role in The Sopranos. People wouldn’t be seeing Kingpin up on the screen. They’d be seeing Tony Soprano. Bad idea, and I doubt very much that Gandolfini would have been interested even if they had offered.
No, because the rationale in making Kingpin black is that Kingpin’s race isn’t important to the character. There’s nothing in his background, in the movie or the comic, that would have to happen differently if he were black. Making Storm white would mean that most of her comic-derived origin no longer applies. Since the whole point of the X-Men movies is to bring the comicbook to the big screen, why include a pointless change that alters the entire nature of one of the major characters from the comics?
- snerk * Yeah, the movie would’ve been good except for the script and two of the leads. Other than those minor problems…
Wait, what? When did that happen? AFAIK Xavier recruited Storm because he needed immensely powerful mutants to rescue the original team. Nothing multi-culti about it originally, unless someone retconned it in.
And I still say Cage is doing a low-rent Elvis. He did a Southern accent in Sonny (actually a Nawlins drawl if memory serves) so he could’ve done “Southern” without doing “Sailor” who was “Elvis.”