Deadpool & Wolverine delighted fans with its deep-cut cameos, but there were even more characters meant to make a comeback. In a recent podcast interview, director Shawn Levy and stars Ryan Reynolds and Hugh Jackman revealed that they had tried to get Nicolas Cage on board to reprise his role as Ghost Rider. Sadly, this one simply didn’t work out.
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Concept artist Rodney Fuentebella previously shared early illustrations for Deadpool & Wolverine, which included shots of Ghost Rider and Ben Affleck as Daredevil. When asked about this on the Awardist podcast, Reynolds confirmed: “They were in early drafts. We had versions of that [sequence], but then as it shook out, you’re sort of looking… We’re trying to make the movie responsibly, as well. It’s a big budget. It’s the biggest budget of any of the Deadpool movies, but you want to give yourself as much constraint, which really I think facilitates asymmetrical thinking and creativity. If you have too much time or too much money, it usually murders that kind of creativity. So, yeah, you’re shrinking things.”
“But we did talk to Nic Cage,” he went on. “We tried to get him, but he was a no-go… I would’ve loved him.” In the end, the movie did feature Chris Evans reprising his role as the Human Torch, Jennifer Garner as Elektra and Wesley Snipes as Blade, while Channing Tatum took on his long-rumored role as Gambit. Levy said he was grateful they got as many stars as they did.
“Luckily, we got a lot of yeses,” he said. “Mostly because Ryan would just call them directly. He’d often do an ambush FaceTime and put them on the spot.”
Cage may have been hesitant after his last superhero cameo in The Flash. Like Tatum, Cage was filling a role he had been rumored to have considered in the past, but had never actually played. After all that hype, he made a very brief, CGI-heavy appearance in an alternate dimension during the movie’s climax. Cage talked about that experience last year in an interview with Yahoo Entertainment.
“I think [The Flash filmmaker Andy Muschietti] is a terrific director, he is a great guy and a great director, and I loved his two It movies,” he said. “What I was supposed to do was literally just be standing in an alternate dimension, if you will, and witnessing the destruction of the universe. Kal-El was bearing witness [to] the end of a universe, and you can imagine with that short amount of time that I had, what that would mean in terms of what I can convey. I had no dialogue [so had to] convey with my eyes the emotion. So that’s what I did. I was on set for maybe three hours.”
Cage may have missed out on Deadpool & Wolverine, but with the MCU’s Multiverse Saga still underway, he may have other chances for one last ride as Ghost Rider. Deadpool & Wolverine is available now on digital, DVD and Blu-ray, and it will hit Disney+ on Tuesday, November 12th.
