I have to admit that Im looking forward to Ghost Rider but just cant see who they are going to turn it to the big screen... even the cartoons werent very succesful even if the comics were

Superman Is Here! And Ghost Rider, Too!

Get your first looks at the Man of Steel and the Spirit of Vengeance
22 April 2005

It seems that Ghost Rider and Superman Returns are inextricably linked. Both are shooting in Australia (GR in Melbourne, Superman in Sydney), both are big-budget superhero movies, and both have developed a penchant for revealing production art at the same time.

Last week gave us a simultaneous look at the new Superman logo for Bryan Singer’s much anticipated revamp of the Man of Steel, and the Hellcycle that Nicolas Cage will be riding as the possessed, flaming-skulled Spirit of Vengeance in Mark Steven Johnson’s supernatural Western… and this week, they’ve gone one better with a first look at the heroes themselves.

Which means that – yes! – today we have our first look at Brandon Routh as Superman. And we’re not talking those pap shots of him as Clark Kent that circulated around the interglobe last week – this is the real deal, with the 25 year-old movie newbie standing resplendent in his Superman costume. And – apart from a couple of subtle changes here and there (the logo is a little smaller, the blue of the costume a little darker) – fanboys will be pleased. No body armour for the Man Of Steel – this is very much, very recognisably Superman.

"With X-Men, although they had extraordinary powers, they also had physical weaknesses," Singer says. "The suits were for protection as well as costume. Superman is the Man of Steel. Bullets bounce off him, not his suit."

And what of Routh? Does he look suitably heroic? Well, the shot – which, like the Ghost Rider pic, appears in heavyweight American daily newspaper USA Today which gets great film still exclusives despite not being Empire, and thus not being the best movie magazine in the world, not that we’re bitter or psychotically jealous, or anything – is taken from a suitably heroic low angle, so he looks the part. He also looks disconcertingly like a young Mr. Big from Sex and the City, but maybe that’s just us. Anyway, the jury is still out until we see him walking, talking, and leaping a tall building in a single bound.

And what of Nic Cage as Johnny Blaze, the human face of the Ghost Rider? Well, Johnson and Marvel Films head honcho, Avi Arad, told Empire recently that Cage was looking lean, mean, ripped, pumped, pimped, studded, muscular, badass, cool, and generally pretty darned good. And now the proof is here, as the first photo showcases Cage riding a big chopper (steady, girls) and looking – it has to be said – lean, mean, ripped, pumped, pimped, studded, muscular, badass, cool and generally pretty darned good.

Ghost Rider is Cage’s obsession (he has a tattoo of the Rider which has had to be covered up, ironically, by the movie’s make-up team), and his chance to finally itch his comic book scratch. (Don’t forget that, if the cards had fallen slightly differently, we would have seen Cage as Superman a few years back, for Tim Burton) “Nic is one of the biggest comic book fans out there,” Johnson told USA Today.

And that sound you can hear is thousands of fanboys eating their words, for Cage looks fantastic (and we mean that in a platonic way), with the best and most convincing wig he’s had in ages and a hardass attitude to match. Everything we’ve seen or heard about Ghost Rider so far suggests it could be one heck of a surprise package come next Summer. Either way, with that, Superman Returns and X-Men 3, it’s going to be a heck of a year for comic book movies.