Here’s Who Should Be Ghost Rider in the MCU
I have a lot of opinions on superheroes, but one thing that I feel very passionately about is the casting of Johnny Blaze, a.k.a. Ghost Rider. What can I say? I love a stunt man turned flaming skull! And right now, he doesn’t exist in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Yet.
Ghost Rider has made appearances in things like Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D, but the Johnny Blaze version of the character has been absent from the conversation. Every once in a while, we’ll hear a whisper from an actor or someone out there claiming that Marvel is looking for their Johnny, but for the most part, we’ve not heard a single confirmed bit of news about Ghost Rider joining the MCU.
That doesn’t stop me from dreaming, so why not talk about what actors would work as the flaming motorcycle rider from Hell that I love with my whole heart? And look, if we get Johnny Blaze, we’ll probably finally get Mephisto, and then everyone can stop making jokes about him. Isn’t that a win for us all?
So, let’s talk about who should take on the metal chains. (Austin Butler is not on this list, because I am team “Let him be Gambit.”)
Norman Reedus
This one is kind of an easy suggestion, but Norman Reedus, already known for his love of motorcycles, would be a fun Johnny Blaze. It’d be an interesting stretch for him as a performer. With The Bikeriders, we got to see how he can play a different kind of motorcycle guy. He has been playing Daryl Dixon on The Walking Dead since the show began, but Funny Sonny was loud and, well, funny in a way that Daryl sometimes isn’t.
His take on Johnny would have to be different from both of those characters, but I think it’d be interesting to see.
Boyd Holbrook
My little weird guy! I love Boyd Holbrook, and he is always playing characters you wouldn’t expect him to play. I first met him on Narcos as Steve Murphy, and from there he has played a guy with mouths for eyes on Sandman, as well as the villain in Logan. He’s been all over the place, so why not let him try his hand at Johnny Blaze?
Holbrook was also in The Bikeriders, so we know that he has that motorcycle guy vibe to him, and I think it’d be really fun to see just how far he can take that weird energy. After all, Johnny Blaze was played by Nic Cage in the other Ghost Rider movies.
Keanu Reeves
There is no one more dreamcast in the MCU than Keanu Reeves. When in doubt, we want Reeves. So why not let him try his take on Johnny? We know that he has the action chops in him to bring the stunt man aspect of the character to life, and I think he’d have a lot of fun digging into the darker aspects of Johnny.
Reeves loves to play a guy who has lost everything, and Johnny definitely has that vibe to him. Plus I think that it’s time we really push for Reeves to finally get cast in the MCU because at this point, the bit is just that we keep trying to fan cast him and Marvel doesn’t do it.
Ryan Gosling
My favorite type of movie is Ryan Gosling as a stunt man. We have Drive and now The Fall Guy, so what if we added a Ghost Rider movie to that list? Now, Gosling has been talked about with this role in the past. Marvel’s Kevin Feige is into it, and I do think it would be a really fun third take on a stunt man from Gosling.
That being said, he might not want to do the same thing again. The stunt man vibe in Drive vs. what he did in The Fall Guy are so tonally different, and I don’t think that a Ghost Rider movie would be different enough from those. Still, he would be a great choice for Johnny Blaze.
Glen Powell
The hottest ticket around right now is a Glen Powell picture. Getting him in the MCU doesn’t seem to be an easy feat (he’s talked about how he doesn’t have interest in it), but hear me out: Let me have this. Please? If I ask nicely?
What is so cool about Johnny as a character is that he’s not like the rest of the heroes. He can be an antihero or a regular hero, depending on how you play him, and he has a really cool motorcycle that he rides around on. How fun is that? I don’t know; I think that if Powell was going to be brought into the MCU in anyway, Johnny Blaze would be the fit for him.
So, who would you cast?
Have a tip we should know? tips@themarysue.com
