Apparently the directors of Crank, Mark Neveldine and Brian Taylor, are in talks with Columbia to direct Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance.  Nicolas Cage is  also in talks to reprise his role of Johnny Blaze.  This is no big surprise being that the actor actually paid to be the character in the first place.

The studio is hurrying to get production under way before November, when the rights for the film would revert back to Marvel. There were rumors back in April that Columbia was going to push through with the movie sans the incredibly busy Cage, but that is no longer the case.

The script has been penned by FlashForward writers Scott Gimple and Seth Hoffman, with the extra supervision of David S.

Goyer, but the details of the script are being kept quiet.  Neveldine and Taylor are writers themselves (they co-wrote Crank, Gamer, and Jonah Hex) but there’s no word as to whether they’ll re-work the script if they come on board.

The first Ghost Rider movie was released in 2007 and was universally panned, but went on to make $230 million in worldwide box offices.  Hopefully the next film will be more accepted (or at least have a decent story line and villain).

Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance is produced by Avi Arad, Ari Arad, Michael De Luca and Steven Paul, with Goyer and Mark Steven Johnson executive producing.