Robert Downey Jr. Has a Wild Vision for Ryan Gosling’s Ghost Rider and Nicolas Cage’s Spider-Noir
San Diego Comic-Con just wrapped one of its most chaotic Marvel weekends in years, and Robert Downey Jr was right at the center of it. The actor spent the convention leading the charge for ‘Avengers Doomsday,’ trading his old Iron Man armor for a Doctor Doom mask and packing a 7,000 person crowd into Hall H.
Amid the Doom theatrics, Marvel also used the weekend to drop one of its biggest casting bombs in recent memory, confirming that Ryan Gosling will play Ghost Rider in a new film directed by Shawn Levy. Gosling reportedly seemed stunned by the reveal himself, telling the crowd it was a role he had wanted for a long time.
That casting news is what set Downey Jr off on a tangent that fans are still buzzing about. Speaking with Entertainment Weekly, Downey Jr was asked whether Gosling’s new Spirit of Vengeance could ever cross paths with other corners of the expanding Marvel multiverse, and he did not hold back. According to the outlet, he pictured Gosling’s Ghost Rider showing up alongside Nicolas Cage’s Spider-Noir, riding together on a motorcycle complete with a side-car.
It is a strange and specific image, but it fits the current moment for both characters. Cage currently stars as Ben Reilly in ‘Spider-Noir,’ the Prime Video and MGM Plus series that reimagines a hardened, aging private investigator wrestling with his past as New York’s only masked hero. The show, developed for MGM+ and Amazon Prime Video, is based on the Spider-Man Noir comics and set in 1930s New York City.
Cage is no stranger to Ghost Rider either, having played Johnny Blaze in the character’s earlier Sony films before Gosling took over the role for Marvel Studios proper. Nicolas Cage starred as Blaze in two Ghost Rider movies released in 2007 and 2011 by Sony, while Gabriel Luna later played a different version of the character on ‘Agents of SHIELD.’ That history is likely part of why Downey Jr’s pitch landed so well online, since it essentially imagines two different Cage eras colliding through a new actor.
Gosling’s actual Ghost Rider movie is still a couple of years out. The standalone film is scheduled for a 2028 release with Shawn Levy directing, marking a fresh live action chapter for the character. Whether Downey Jr’s motorcycle and side-car daydream ever becomes reality remains uncertain, since neither project has announced any crossover plans so far.
Still, the timing makes the idea feel less like idle chatter and more like a genuine wish list from someone who now has real influence over where Marvel’s multiverse goes next. Downey Jr has spent this entire press cycle treating the MCU like his personal playground again, and this offhand comment slots right into that energy.
Do you want a Ghost Rider and Spider Noir tandem?
Fans have already started running with the visual, imagining what a flaming skull riding shotgun next to a black and white detective would even look like on screen. Would you actually want to see Gosling’s Ghost Rider and Cage’s Spider-Noir share a scene, side-car and all, or should Marvel keep these two very different corners of its universe apart?
