Ryan Reynolds Considered Nicolas Cage's Ghost Rider for Deadpool & Wolverine

Spoiler warning: This article contains spoilers for Deadpool & Wolverine.

Ryan Reynolds considered getting Nicolas Cage to cameo as Ghost Rider in Deadpool & Wolverine.

Deadpool & Wolverine director Shawn Levy previously shared how some of the movie's wild cameos came to be, but now Reynolds has opened up about the actors who didn't make the roster. It turns out that Nicolas Cage could have donned his leather jacket and rode on to the scene as Johnny Blaze, AKA Ghost Rider.

"Yes," Reynolds told Collider, acknowledging that there was a time when the team thought about bringing Cage in to reprise his role as Ghost Rider, adding, "Came to a conversation for sure. Yeah, but no."

Cage starred as Johnny Blaze in the 2007 film Ghost Rider and its 2011 sequel, Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance, so it's over ten years since he last played the character, but if he had returned for Deadpool & Wolverine, he would have been in good company as several legacy characters showed up in the superhero blockbuster.

While it didn't end up happening, just like Taylor Swift (which Levy admits to being "one of the loudest rumors that came out of nowhere"), his name was, at least, on the table for a moment. The same can't be said for Sir Patrick Stewart, who Levy revealed was "never considered" or "discussed" for a Charles Xavier cameo.

Despite Xavier's absence from the movie, Deadpool & Wolverine had no shortage of X-Men characters from the Fox era of films, including appearances from Pyro, Sabretooth, Azazel, and many more. Xavier's evil twin sister, Cassandra Nova, also made her live-action debut, with Emma Corrin starring in the villainous role.

Deadpool & Wolverine premiered on July 26, 2024, to the largest R-rated global box office opening ever, but the film divided critics. IGN called the latest MCU entry "an outrageous, consistently funny superhero comedy that succeeds largely thanks to the contagious enthusiasm of leads Ryan Reynolds and Hugh Jackman."

Adele Ankers-Range is a freelance entertainment writer for IGN. You can follow her on X/Twitter here.