While promoting the goofy secret agent guinea pig movie G-Force, Nicolas Cage was roped into talking about the potential Ghost Rider sequel by MTV. Or is that a reboot, not a sequel? What do you call it when some of the principal talent wants to try again with a movie that they screwed up the first time? Cage, who plays his comments cautiously, talks about re-conceiving the whole story, and going “in a whole other direction.” What Ghost Rider v2.0 might be, after the break.

For the past couple years Nic Cage and various other original Ghost Rider participants have talked about continuing the franchise, despite the lackluster box office of the original, and earlier this year Peter reported that Columbia was officially soliciting writers for pitches and that Cage had been signed for another film. But no one really wants to see the story continue from the original film, which was poorly realized.

Cage seems to agree. “I would like to do a re-conceive. I would like to go in a whole other direction, and I think that’s what they’re talking about. I would make it much less of a Western and more of an international story.” We’ve heard before that the character could end up working for the church in Europe, in a story that has Da Vinci Code sort of influences.

Not that the fact that the movie was a Western was the problem at all. A good script could have done right by the old west influences in the story. And there was Sam freakin’ Elliott, and you’ve got to work pretty hard to misuse him. The problem was the script and direction, both by Mark Steven Johnson, who didn’t seem at all suited to the material. Hire a writer who gets it and is willing to really have fun with the idea of a demon riding a motorcycle and things might work out just fine.