Ryan Gosling Is In Ghost Rider, But His Wife Got There First
With this year's San Diego Comic-Con, we were finally treated to the reveal that Ryan Gosling would be the next Ghost Rider to appear in the Marvel Cinematic Universe in Ghost Rider (2028). As of now, it's unclear who he will be playing, but the hype surrounding him has already taken the internet by storm.
Ryan Gosling has become one of Hollywood's most beloved actors, and his relationship with his wife Eva Mendes is just as praised for how much love they have for one another. Now that he's Ghost Rider, it places her in a unique position in which she appeared in a Ghost Rider film long before Gosling ever got the chance.
Who Was Eva Mendes in ‘Ghost Rider’?
Ghost Rider (2007) had Nicolas Cage as Johnny Blaze, the motorcycle stuntman who sold his soul to Mephisto to save his dying father. When his father died in an accident anyway, Johnny was cursed to do Mephisto's bidding as the Ghost Rider. But this also meant not having a normal life with the love of his life, Roxanne Simpson.
Mendes played Roxanne and was one of the highlights of the film as she worked well with Cage. Though they didn't share the screen for a large amount of time, her background as a reporter helped her decipher and understand what Johnny was dealing with.
In the comics, she becomes Blaze's wife, and they have children, but unfortunately she dies, and his children are lost, leaving Johnny alone all over again. Thankfully, the film version didn't get that far, and we were able to enjoy just how much of a fun character Roxanne is and the potential of how helpful she could've been in later sequels.
Can Ryan Gosling Channel the Power of the Ghost Rider?
While the first Ghost Rider film has become a gem of the early years of superhero movies, its sequel. Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance (2011) hasn't held up with the larger fanbase. But the one constant was that Nicolas Cage was enjoyable as Johnny Blaze.
The question remains if Ryan Gosling can bring something new to the lore and stand out among an acting legend like Cage. But considering we don't even know if Gosling is playing Blaze or Danny Ketch, it makes it hard to know what to expect. If he is Blaze, though, then he has an opportunity to lean more into the tortured soul aspect of the character.
Blaze, in the comics, was never happy with his curse even after he learned to live with it. He stayed away from people he cared about and was constantly in danger. While Cage did inject qualities of this, the desire for studios to make the Rider more appealing made the movie more lighthearted.
But if Gosling wants to stand out, now is the time to play on the darker side of the character and make the humor feel more organic than forced. By doing that, it would ensure that Gosling's performance wouldn't be overshadowed by what Cage pioneered.
Should Eva Mendes Return as Roxanne in the MCU's Ghost Rider film?
We can't argue that seeing Gosling and Mendes on screen again, let alone for a film like Ghost Rider, would be a great thing to experience. Plus, the MCU has already proven that there are multiple universes where certain characters could look the same. In short, seeing Mendes as Roxanne isn't completely off the table.
There are still some issues with that, though, as there is always the question of whether the studio would want to cast someone else to fully separate from the other film. In doing so, it would lessen the expectations as we wouldn't be comparing one version of Mendes with another. There's also the option of not having a love interest in the first film at all.
With so many directions this new Ghost Rider film could go, there's an undeniable irony and hilarity that Eva Mendes' husband is now playing the same characters she interacted with almost 20 years ago. But whether or not she could return is virtually unknown; one thing that we'd all love to see is Gosling and Mendes share time as the doomed couple from the comics.
