Ryan Gosling’s Ghost Rider Has a Chance to Pay Off These Two Marvel Promises After Years of Waiting
When Marvel announced that Ryan Gosling was going to play Ghost Rider in his own solo Marvel Cinematic Universe movie, it caused a lot of excitement in the fan base. The excitement came both from the signing of Gosling in the lead role and from the fact that the MCU is finally roaring forward with the supernatural corner of the universe that the company had promised fans years ago. This is something many fans have been waiting for since Blade’s voice rang out at the end of Eternals, although there is still no word on whether there will be a Blade movie or if Mahershala Ali is even still locked into that role.
That wasn’t when the teases about the supernatural world started, though, as it has been six years since Marvel promised to unleash this part of the comic book world onto the fans.
Marvel Promised a Supernatural World Six Years Ago
In 2020, Marvel was still releasing shows on Hulu, which was where it placed the more adult-themed shows in the comic book world. This included adult animated shows like MODOK and Hit Monkey, as well as what Marvel said was the start of a new supernatural universe with the dark Marvel heroes. However, while Marvel had teased two supernatural shows, with more on the way, only one arrived. The two shows that Marvel announced in 2019 were Helstrom and a Ghost Rider series, with Gabriel Luna returning as Robbie Reyes, a character he originally played in Marvel’s Agents of SHIELD.
Marvel, at the time, called Helstrom and Ghost Rider the cornerstones of “Adventure Into Fear,” and the company claimed they would connect to each other in a similar way to how the Netflix shows, like Daredevil and the other street-level series, connected. Also, like the Netflix shows at the time, they would live in their own bubble and not cross over with the MCU movies. Four months after the announcement, Hulu chose not to move forward with Ghost Rider, but said it would still consider other supernatural Marvel series.
Paul Zbyszewski, a former executive producer on Agents of SHIELD, was the showrunner for Helstrom. Marvel terminated his contract in 2020 during the pandemic, but he kept working on Helstrom, and the series finally arrived in October 2020 without Marvel’s name in the title anymore. That marked the end of Marvel’s supernatural plans at Hulu, and they have remained dormant for the last six years.
Marvel Can Finally Pay Off the Blade Tease
Marvel planning a Blade movie was exciting news, especially with an Oscar-winning star like Ali in the lead role. When he approached Dane Whitman during the end credits of Eternals, it set up the Blade movie and teased the addition of the Black Knight as well. However, the movie has been in development hell since that time. The script has gone through several rewrites as Marvel searched for the right tone. Directors have come and gone, and Marvel head Kevin Feige said that the studio needed to slow down and consider quality over quantity, which is why Marvel has released fewer movies over the past few years.
Feige even joked last week that the Blade delays make him feel like a “gigantic loser and failure.” Marvel did bring back Blade for a cameo when Wesley Snipes reprised the role in Deadpool & Wolverine, but that is the closest that Marvel has come to bringing one of its biggest supernatural antiheroes to the screen. Blade has actually been in limbo for years. According to Kate Beckinsale, a 2012 Blade/Underworld crossover was pitched, only for Marvel to reject it, saying it had plans for the character. Now, 14 years later, Marvel still hasn’t done anything with those plans.
That could all change with the news of the Ghost Rider movie. Gosling will likely play Johnny Blaze in the new movie, although there is still a chance that Robbie Reyes could make his return as well. Agents of SHIELD established that Reyes gained his powers from another Ghost Rider, a hint pointing at Blaze. The biggest rumors are that this will lead to the Midnight Sons movie, which could involve Ghost Rider, Blade, Moon Knight, Black Knight, and any number of other supernatural characters. Whatever it leads to, Marvel is paying off two long-standing promises and finally bringing the supernatural world to the MCU.
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