Credit: Far Out / MUBI
Considering that just about every famous actor on the planet has been involved in the franchise, it’s easy to forget that Idris Elba was part of the Marvel Cinematic Universe once upon a time.
Elba was actually an early adopter of the box office juggernaut, playing Heimdall in Thor, just the fourth entry in the now-monumental series. As the all-seeing guardian of the Bifröst, Heimdall played a vital role in the Asgardian adventures of the MCU, eventually meeting a noble end in Avengers: Infinity War. However, this wasn’t his only superhero excursion in 2011.
About eight months after the premiere of Thor, Elba turned up in another Marvel property, although this one wasn’t part of Kevin Feige’s billion-dollar tapestry. Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance was the follow-up to Nicolas Cage’s first outing as the flaming-skulled motorcycle enthusiast from four years earlier. Elba joined the franchise as Moreau, an agent of an underground religious movement hailing from France… Well, at least I think he was supposed to be French; his accent doesn’t offer much of a clue.
Spirit of Vengeance was designed to be completely different from its forerunner, owing to the poor reviews that Ghost Rider received – Elba was all too aware of this risky strategy, as he explained to Comic Book Movie.
“It was definitely a sort of like a, ‘Hm, should I be doing this?’ because of the previous film,” he said. “But, there was a new take on it, and I personally know what I can bring to the table, and I just felt that there was something there to work with. So, I believe that the second version of Ghost Rider has a completely different DNA. Just a different feeling and tempo – and I’m part of that. So, hopefully, people will be forgiving.”
The original Ghost Rider, which saw Cage step into the shoes of stuntman-turned-demon Johnny Blaze, was a financial hit, but failed to win over critics – this was in 2007, one year out from Iron Man, and Robert Downey Jr revolutionised superhero flicks forever, but reviewers had already been treated to Bryan Singer’s X-Men and Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man series, and by comparison, Ghost Rider was deemed run-of-the-mill, which is a mad thing to say when you remember the premise – so for Spirit of Vengeance, they decided to go all out.
The sequel opted for a less grounded, more B-movie-style approach, spearheaded by one of Cage’s most insane performances ever, and despite a few positive reviews, not everyone was on board with the over-the-top approach.
Spirit of Vengeance somehow scored even lower among critics than the first one and made significantly less money at the box office. The franchise was essentially dead in the water, and the character hasn’t appeared in a movie since.
While Elba might have been right about Spirit of Vengeance, he was able to bounce back pretty quickly. He wasn’t even put off superhero movies, as he would appear as Bloodsport in 2021’s The Suicide Squad… Don’t you just love a happy ending?
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