Anthony Bergamini
Ghost Rider (2007) was an early 2000s Marvel film, predating the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) by just one year, showcasing the origin of the titular character. The film follows Johnny Blaze, a stunt performer who makes a deal with the Devil (Mephistopheles), turning him into The Spirit of Vengeance. Despite predating Iron Man by only a year, the film truly feels like many other early 2000s superhero films, utilizing cliches, mediocre performances, and depthless villains to push forward the plot. Despite its flaws, the film entertains a lot more than its Rotten Tomatoes score may suggest, working as a solid origin story. This may be the allure of a Nicholas Cage performance; however, upon further investigation, the film’s story structure showcases a bygone comparison to a classic superhero film, Superman: The Movie that almost makes it uncanny in its approach and appeal.
For many, comparing an early 2000s superhero film that predates the MCU to the likes of Superman: The Movie, is outright blasphemous and irrefutably ignorant. That being said, if you look further into the events of each of the films and how they introduce their core characters and concepts, it becomes really clear that the filmmakers behind Ghost Rider took a couple liberties from the source material to ensure that the plot made sense, with a very uncanny similarity to the way that Superman: The Movie is structured.
The comparisons really start after the destruction of Krypton, wherein both characters experience a loss of their father figures, due to an illness or circumstance that they are unable to prevent. This leads both of the characters to go off on their own to explore who they really are and what they are capable of. For Clark, this leads him to creating his Fortress of Solitude, learning about his alien heritage, with the film showcasing a time skip to when he is an adult working in Metropolis. For Johnny, he goes through years and years of committing himself to death defying stunts as he learns that he is unable to die because of the deal he made when he was younger. Despite the fact that both of these characters go in different directions with their soul searching endeavors, the story similarities are uncanny in the way they mirror one another.
The next big similarity is how the films choose to depict the current status of the characters as they reach adulthood, showing the audience what their lives look like. This segment is much longer for Johnny, as the film showcases him going through a couple death-defying stunts, and discussing his next stunt with his manager before the love of his life returns and reminds him of what his life was like before he had made the deal with the devil. This all builds up to the eventual reveal of Johnny as the Ghost Rider, where he formally becomes the hero at the behest of the devil, once the villains start making their plans and machinations. This segment for Clark is a lot shorter, with the film showing his arrival in Metropolis and his new life as a reporter as he gets introduced to Lois Lane. The biggest similarity here is how both of these segments of the film get interrupted and shifted. Once the characters’ love interests come onto the scene, the heroes’ motivations begin to change, as do their paths forward in the films.
Both of these scenes in the separate films end up leading to the eventual reveal of the heroes in their full-fledged costumes. For Superman, this is the iconic scene where he saves Lois from the helicopter crash where she falls from the Daily Planet rooftop, proceeding to fly away after the entire city gets to see him. For Ghost Rider, it is a bit more drawn out, with Johnny fighting the villains in a much more graphic and violent scene; however, they both coalesce by showing the hero stopping an everyday crime. Superman is depicted stopping a burglar who is climbing on the side of a building, whereas Ghost Rider saves a woman who is being robbed in an alley. Both of these scenes showcase the hero’s abilities, motives, and actions that they will pursue in their everyday heroic capacities, packaged in a brief scene that does not detract from the overall story of the movies.
Truth be told, the films do present themselves in very different manners with these similar scenes, sometimes happening in different orders from one to the other. Additionally, the villainous exploits of Lex Luther are very different from Blackheart, who is the son of the devil and has many different powers. That being said, both of these villains are depicted in a somewhat cheesy manner, both having ridiculously circuitous schemes that get fleshed out through multiple scenes of exposition. Additionally, neither of the villains really have any sort of personal vendetta against the heroes, it is more the fact that the heroes serve as a possible detractor to their schemes and thus must be stopped. The story similarities here really come from the idea that both of the villainous introduction scenes seemingly pop up out of nowhere during the movies, resulting in a tonal shift that is unexpected, and unlike something that you would expect based on the prior events of the movies.
While the stories from this point diverge in structure from one another, key events still remain similar enough to draw strong comparisons between how these films are layered. As previously mentioned, the scene that introduces Superman in his full costume showcases him saving Lois Lane from a falling building where many people within the city are able to look up and see what is going on and see the hero for the first time. A similar thing happens in Ghost Rider, where a later action seen in the movie sees the character go up against one of the villainous henchmen in a rooftop battle that is viewed by many members of the police department as well as the love interest.
There are also a handful of scenes that show the villain, realizing that the hero may be more unstoppable than they previously thought, leading to them looking for some sort of weakness that they can exploit for that character. For Superman, that weakness is Kryptonite, whereas for Ghost Rider the weakness is the daytime and sunlight which prevents him from being able to use his abilities. Additionally, the exploits of the villains lead to the love interest being put in some sort of peril which causes the hero to act in a manner and produce powers and abilities that had not yet been seen in the film. For Superman, he goes back in time and prevents Lex Luther’s scheme from occurring, whereas Ghost Rider reveals that he is able to use his hellfire to transform a shotgun into a weapon that can blast the fire at his enemy.
Now, a lot of these stories, contrivances and similarities, may be tropes that appear in several super franchises; however, it is the way that these events occur in both of these films and mirror one another that really makes it strange to see how similar these two films really are. Oddly enough, the films are very different in tone, in the way that they present their characters and themes, and in the subject matter they are depicting. But their similarities showcase an idea in Hollywood that revolves around reusing classic filmmaking strategies, techniques, and methods as they are proven to work and may continue to work until audiences seek something new. Maybe this is the kind of filmmaking that led to the creation of the MCU, with audiences looking for a new formula that works that is different from what they are used to. The ironic part is that in 2025, audiences are now growing tired of that MCU formula in the same way that they were tired of the Superman formula that birthed many of the early 2000s superhero films like Ghost Rider.
For me, growing up with many of the early 2000s superhero movies put them at a point of nostalgia, with their reliance on story structures, and elements from films that came out decades before not really being a factor. Now, as films continue to come out in that superhero genre, my reference point is to those early 2000s films like Ghost Rider and Fantastic Four, which represent the superhero filmmaking industry on the cusp of extreme social relevance, despite being just slightly out of reach. Now, as an adult, when I go back and watch these movies, I see those direct similarities to films like Superman, and it really opens my eyes too why the public opinions may differ from my nostalgic perspective.
