Ghost Rider Is Circling Connor Storrie as Its Villain, and Ryan Gosling's Marvel Film Now Has a Shape

Photo: TurnOnTheNight, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

The Hollywood Reporter broke it and Deadline and Variety confirmed it within hours: Connor Storrie is in talks to play the villain in Marvel's Ghost Rider, opposite Ryan Gosling. Marvel has not said who the villain is. Marvel has not officially said Gosling is Johnny Blaze either, but at this point that is a formality, and the film has a date, July 28, 2028, and a director in Shawn Levy.

Photo: Elen Nivrae from Paris, France, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Storrie is the Heated Rivalry guy. If you have not watched it, it is the hockey romance that became a word-of-mouth hit, and he plays Ilya Rozanov, the Russian star who is all swagger on the ice and something else off it. He is a very specific kind of handsome and he can do menace, which is presumably why Marvel wants him in a role that is going to involve a lot of hellfire.

Photo: Gage Skidmore from Surprise, AZ, United States of America, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

The guessing has already started. Blackheart, the son of Mephisto, is the obvious pick because he was the villain in the 2007 Nicolas Cage film and he is the character comics readers associate with Johnny Blaze. Daimon Hellstrom has been floated, and so has Danny Ketch, the second Ghost Rider, set up as an antagonist. Nobody has anything solid. One outlet pointed out there is no indication Blackheart is even in the film.

Photo: Romain Brami, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Levy coming off Deadpool and Wolverine is the part that makes me think this will be lighter than the premise suggests. Gosling has been funny on screen for years now, and a Ghost Rider that leans into the absurdity of a flaming skull on a motorcycle could work much better than a grim one. The Cage films were not good, but they were not boring either.

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Filming starts in New York next year. Are you in for a Gosling Ghost Rider, or has Marvel burned through your patience with reboots?