Nicolas Cage Forum

 
Every so often, there's a weekend that really makes you question the minds of the people you see every day. Sure, Shrek Forever After is going to take 1st place in the box-office it's opening weekend. That's a given. But every so often you look at returns on a truly awful movie, see how incredibly well it's doing, and have to hold onto the walls and floor around you as your very world-view spins out of control. 2007's Ghost Rider, taking in $47 million it's opening weekend, was such a movie. The worst kind of comic book adaptation, it featured a pretty abysmal cast (a pretty perfect Sam Elliot aside), nonsense characterization (Ghost Rider loves jellybeans! Why not!), and video-game plot structure. But at least, I thought, it's so terrible there probably won't be a sequel. Then the movie went on to rake in $228 million worldwide, and a follow-up was quickly announced as coming. Despair sunk in.
 
But today news came that is melting my brain like so much Johnny Blaze face. The Hollywood Reporter is, uh, reporting that the duo who wrote/directed the epic modern action masterpiece Crank, Mark Neveldine and Brian Taylor, are now in talks to helm the sequel. If you haven't seen Crank or Crank 2, then, boy, I don't even know what to say except check out their wiki pages and click the "Buy It On Amazon" button immediately. They combine this insane cult movie "we can do whatever the fuck we want" sensibility with all the trappings of classic action movies. Think Dead Alive meets Die Hard and you're not far off.  

While Nicholas Cage is still only "in talks" to reprise his role as the titular Rider, just the possibility of all the crazy things this duo could get him to do excites the hell out of me. In terms of pairing director/writers, stars and premise, these are all pretty evenly matched on the "insanity" scale. If Neveldine and Taylor cut loose, they could honestly make Cage's performance in Bad Lieutenant look like his performance in Con Air.  
 
-Casey- 
 
(via The Hollywood Reporter)