The Ghost Rider 2 writing-directing team of Mark Neveldine and Brian Taylor caused some confusion when they announced on their Twitter account that "the dual role of blaze/zarathos will be a Nic Cage classic." Many sites thought that this suggested that Cage would play both hero and villain in the upcoming sequel, titled Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance, despite the well established fact that Zarathos is the spirit that binds itself to Johnny Blaze when the character becomes the Ghost Rider. Taylor explained to Empire what he and Neveldine meant by the tweet.
Zarathos is the spirit that inhabits John Blaze when he becomes Ghost Rider, but unlike the first movie, where the rider was stiffly acted out by various stunt guys, Nic will be playing all the Ghost Rider stuff himself, and we're creating a whole physical language for the demon that is different from the human Blaze.
Ah, now we get it. So it's like Adaptation without the fatsuit? Or is it Face/Off without John Travolta?
Either way, the directors and Cage will have it sorted out when shooting commences in November in Turkey and Romania. Ciarán Hinds will play the devil, which sure seems like a villainous role, with Johnny Whitworth as his minion. Idris Elba will appear as "an alcoholic warrior monk," and Violante Placido will play the mother of the boy that Blaze is looking for.
