“Deadpool & Wolverine” team recall the near-return of Nicolas Cage's Ghost Rider: 'We tried to get him'

Ryan Reynolds, Hugh Jackman, and director Shawn Levy join EW's "Awardist" podcast and explain what could've been.

Warning: This article contains spoilers from Deadpool & Wolverine.

Back in August, just a couple weeks after the release of Deadpool & Wolverine, Marvel concept artist Rodney Fuentebella revealed an early-stages illustration that he rendered to envision what the Deadpool Corps. fight sequence from the movie might've looked like. It displayed the army of Deadpool variants, including a since-scrapped Dinopool (a Deadpool T-rex), fighting Ryan Reynolds' Wade Wilson, Hugh Jackman's Logan, Wesley Snipes' Blade, Jennifer Garner's Elektra, Chris Evans' Johnny Storm, and — to the surprise of fans — Ben Affleck's Daredevil and Nicolas Cage's Ghost Rider.

"This was in the beginning stages of the making of the film so a lot changed," Fuentebella wrote in the caption.

Joining Entertainment Weekly's Awardist podcast, Reynolds and Jackman, as well as director Shawn Levy, recalled their efforts to land Cage for a Ghost Rider appearance, even if they didn't get the outcome they were hoping for.

Related: Deadpool & Wolverine heads to digital, Blu-ray: Watch an exclusive clip of the Logan variants

"They were in early drafts," Reynolds, who was also involved as a writer and executive producer, confirms of Affleck and Cage. "We had versions of that [sequence], but then as it shook out, you're sort of looking...We're trying to make the movie responsibly, as well. It's a big budget. It's the biggest budget of any of the Deadpool movies, but you want to give yourself as much constraint, which really I think facilitates asymmetrical thinking and creativity. If you have too much time or too much money, it usually murders that kind of creativity. So, yeah, you're shrinking things."

"But we did talk to Nic Cage," the actor continues. "We tried to get him, but he was a no-go.... I would've loved him."

Like Garner and Snipes, Cage and Affleck played Marvel heroes in movies that were owned at the time by 20th Century Fox, the studio that has since been absorbed into the Walt Disney Company and rebranded as 20th Century Studios. Cage headlined 2007's Ghost Rider, playing motorcycle stuntman Johnny Blaze who transforms into a fiery agent of justice after selling his soul to save a loved one. He returned to the role for the sequel, 2011's Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance.

Affleck, meanwhile, appeared as Marvel's Devil of Hell's Kitchen in 2003's Daredevil, which also marked the introduction of Garner's Elektra.

Related: Ryan Reynolds reveals secret Deadpool & Wolverine Gambit scene most of us missed

"Luckily, we got a lot of yeses," Levy adds. Those yeses included Snipes, Garner, Evans, Henry Cavill (the Cavill-rine Wolverine variant), Channing Tatum (Gambit), and Dafne Keen (X-23/Laura). "Mostly because Ryan would just call them directly," the filmmaker says. "He'd often do an ambush FaceTime and put them on the spot."

Cage more recently reprised a different kind of superhero role. He appeared as an alternate-reality version of Superman in DC's The Flash, bringing to life a part he would've played in Superman Lives, a movie Tim Burton was supposed to direct before the whole thing shut down.

"I think [The Flash filmmaker Andy Muschietti] is a terrific director, he is a great guy and a great director, and I loved his two It movies," Cage previously said of that Superman cameo. "What I was supposed to do was literally just be standing in an alternate dimension, if you will, and witnessing the destruction of the universe. Kal-El was bearing witness [to] the end of a universe, and you can imagine with that short amount of time that I had, what that would mean in terms of what I can convey. I had no dialogue [so had to] convey with my eyes the emotion. So that's what I did. I was on set for maybe three hours."

Related: Ryan Reynolds is 'mortified' over cutting Rob McElhenney from Deadpool & Wolverine: 'I had to kill a darling'

Deadpool & Wolverine has since become a runaway blockbuster success for Marvel, ascending to the rank of highest-grossing R-rated film of all time. The hype was bolstered by Reynolds and Jackman's first team-up as the characters since 2009's X-Men Origins: Wolverine, the official induction of the comic book mutants into Disney's MCU, and the onslaught of high-profile cameos.

Listen to the full Awardist podcast episode with Reynolds, Jackman, and Levy wherever you listen to podcasts.

Deadpool & Wolverine is available on DVD, Blu-Ray, and Digital, but it will also arrive on Disney+ this Nov. 12.