Director Mark Steven Johnson talks about "Ghost Rider" Movie
Director chats about the finished Ghost Rider movie, "PG" vs. "R" rated material, Sony Entertainment, unfamiliar comic heroes, and much more...
Mark Steven Johnson Interview For 'Ghost Rider'
You obviously had enough time to do everything that you wanted to do on this film production wise, right?
Johnson: To do everything that I wanted? Well, close. I mean, there's never everything that you want. You always want more. That's just the nature of the beast. It's tough because you can't shoot it like a normal movie and every time there is a close-up of Ghost Rider it's going to cost $50k and if it's a wide shot it's $100k. So you can't cover it the way you normally would and you always want more coverage than you have. So it's not like a normal movie. Your hero is a special effect and that's the tough part for me. You always want to have more than you can have, but it's at what cost because it's a very expensive character. That's why it has been so tough to pull off.
Can you talk about the genesis of you coming onboard because I know that at one point [Steve] Norrington and [David] Goyer were involved? Did you ever take a look at what Norrington had done with it?
Johnson: Of course, sure.
Did anything carry over?
Johnson: Yeah, there are a couple of scenes there. There is the scene in the prison cell where everyone jumps on him and beating on him and he turns into Ghost Rider and explodes and burns his way through the bars. You saw a little bit of that in the trailer and that's from Steve Norrington, or I should say David because David wrote that. I really liked that a lot, and I loved David's script. I thought it was great. It was a different script. That's also the nature of the beast that when you come onto a movie you want to make your own version of the movie. Goyer's was a very dark, very hard R which is cool, but it's one of those things where it's my deal with the devil, if you will – when you want to make a 'Ghost Rider' movie it's expensive. It's not like you make like 'The Crow' or 'Blade' or something. It's like what I was just saying to you. It's so expensive that it's like, 'If you're going to give me all the money to make this movie right I have to be responsible and try to get everyone I can to come and see the film.' You can't make it a cult film. You have to make it a big film which it should be.
Are you trying to go PG-13?
Johnson: We are PG-13, yeah, which I was actually really happy and surprised about because I was expecting to have to cut stuff out so it wouldn't be an R. 'Daredevil' was an R and I had to cut things out to make it a PG-13 and this is just like, there is so much stuff in it that I thought, 'Oh my God, we're dead.' But we made it which is amazing. You know what's funny is that what made 'Daredevil' an R is there was this scene where Bullseye kills Elektra, he gutted her – that was okay. He kissed her afterwards and then he threw her down. The kiss gave us an R. Isn't that weird? It's okay to kill a girl, but you just can't kiss her afterwards because somehow that's repulsive. I don't know. Click below to read the rest of the interview.