Ryan Reynolds wanted Nicolas Cage's cameo as Ghost Rider in 'Deadpool & Wolverine'

EDITOR'S NOTE: STORY CONTAINS SPOILERS FOR DEADPOOL & WOLVERINE

One of the big surprises of the summer blockbuster, Deadpool & Wolverineis the number of surprise cameos it has, with actors and actresses reprising roles popular with the audience.

Among them are the returns of Chris Evans as Johnny Storm from The Fantastic FourJennifer Garner as Elektra, Dafne Keen as X-23, and Wesley Snipes as Blade, the debut of Channing Tatum as Gambit, and the surprise return of Henry Cavill as a Wolverine variant from another timeline.

But there was another actor in particular who was to everyone's taste. Ryan Reynolds and who did he want for a cameo: Nicolas Cage as Ghost Rider.

In an interview with Collider, Reynolds told the outlet that Ghost Rider was on his dream list of cameos for the film, and when asked if he had been in contact with Cage about reprising his role, Reynolds said, “Yes,” adding:

“We must have had a conversation. Yes, but no.”

Cage starred in two films about Ghost Rider; the first in 2007, and the sequel Spirit of Vengeance in 2012.

Director Shawn Levy told Variety that the cameos were hand-picked:

“Without exception, every surprise casting on this film came down to Ryan or I contacting the actor before the lawyers and agents [intervinieran]“We literally asked and people invariably said ‘yes.’”

In 2018, Cage told Yahoo! Entertainment that he believed the Ghost Rider films would have performed better at the box office if they had been R-rated, as was the case with Deadpool:

“If Ghost Rider had been made in an 18+ format, like they had the courage to do with Deadpool, I’m pretty sure it would have been a huge success. Having said that, I still think the movies were a success. People don’t look at the secondary channels, like DVD and streaming and stuff. When you look at what Mark Neveldine and Brian Taylor did, they’re not going to be able to see the movies. [en ‘Spirit of Vengeance’] for $50 million, and they made a profit of $250 million, you start to see the genius of the sequel.”

Continuous:

“The problem is that it’s very difficult to get a family with kids to see a movie – and they made it a PG-13 movie – about a superhero who, by the way, also sold his soul to Satan. It’s not the most commercial concept or vehicle, but it’s certainly the most interesting and thought-provoking. I think if you look back at today’s movies, they age well.”