Ghost Rider: The Abridged Script
By: Rod Hilton on Aug 20th, 2007 | Movie Rating: 
FADE IN:
INT. CIRCUS
SAM ELLIOTT (V.O.)
Well, I’d like to tell ya’ll a little story. See, there’s thishere devil, and he’s a-collectin’ souls. But there’s thishere other character, yahear? And he calls himself.. the dude. Er, the Ghost Rider. Ghost Rider.
YOUNG NICOLAS CAGE fawns over YOUNG EVA MENDES.
YOUNG NICOLAS CAGE
I love you. We should take off together, barring some unforseen tragic event that reshapes the course of my life forever.
YOUNG EVA MENDES
What could happen?
PETER FONDA finds YOUNG NICOLAS CAGE and looks EVIL, which is sure to win the trust of NICOLAS.
PETER FONDA
Hello Nicolas. Your dad is sick. Sell your soul if you want him to get better.
YOUNG NICOLAS CAGE
Peter Fonda? Oscar-nominated thespian Peter Fonda? What in the holy living fuck are you doing in this movie?
PETER FONDA
Hamming it up, what else? Here, sign this contract. Mwa-ha-ha-ha.
YOUNG NICOLAS CAGE
No. Oops. Some blood spilled on it. Surely that’s not legally binding.
PETER FONDA
Pffft, sure it is. Who do you think all the lawyers work for?
NICOLAS CAGE’S DAD gets rid of his cancer, but then has an accident during a motorcycle stunt minutes later.
YOUNG NICOLAS CAGE
Dad! Are you okay? Oh, actually, you don’t seem to have any burns, cuts, bruises, or injuries of any kind. I guess you’re fine.
NICOLAS’S DAD
For some reason, I’m going to die anyway.
(dies)
NICOLAS CAGE grows up and becomes a motorcylce stuntman himself. Except he kind of sucks at it.
EVA MENDES
Nicolas, I’m a newswoman now. I’d like to interview you.
NICOLAS CAGE
Wow, look at you. You’ve grown a lot since we were teenagers. Well, your boobs have. Anyway, go ahead and interview.
EVA MENDES
Alright, first question: weren’t we the same age as teenagers? How did you manage to age ten years more than me since then?
PETER FONDA
Hey Nicolas. Remember when you sold me your soul? You can have it back if you become my Ghost Rider. Go kill Wes Bentley, he’s my son or something. He wants some contract the old Ghost Rider stole.
NICOLAS CAGE
No.
(pause)
Fine.
NICOLAS’S HEAD turns into a FUCKING FLAMING SKULL and film as an artform officially DIES.
FLAMING NICOLAS CAGE
SKULL ANGRY! RIDE BIKE!
FLAMING NICOLAS confronts WES BENTLEY, who has apparently forgotten how to act. NICOLAS loses the battle and heads home. Taking a page from “Writing A Comic Book Movie For Complete Fucking Idiots”, he discovers a woman being mugged his first night as a superhero and saves her.
FLAMING NICOLAS CAGE
(to mugger)
Youuuu. Guiltyyyyy.
MUGGER
Youuuu. Sillyyyyy.
MUGGING VICTIM
Rather than shit my pants at the sight of a fucking walking skeleton covered in fire, I’ll politely thank you for saving me and be on my way.
FLAMING NICOLAS kills the mugger, presumably sending him to hell and giving his enemy, the Devil, another soul for his army. He then stumbles upon SAM ELLIOTT.
SAM ELLIOTT
Hey, I’m the narrator from before. Since every movie like this needs a character that understands the associated mythology in order to explain it to the audience, let me fill you in. Basically you work for the devil at night and you’re normal during the day.
NICOLAS CAGE
Because darkness is the symbol for evil while light is the symbol for purity?
SAM ELLIOTT
What? No, because the special effects would look even more ridiculous if well-lit.
NICOLAS CAGE
Oh. So how do I beat Wes Bentley?
SAM ELLIOTT
I dunno, show him a plastic bag blowing in the wind and hit him with a brick when he’s distracted.
NICOLAS meets up again with EVA MENDES, since they have so much chemistry together and every moment they spend on screen is pure bliss for the audience.
NICOLAS CAGE
So, you should probably stay away from me. I’m a Marvel superhero now, which means I need to be tortured by having to give up on love.
EVA MENDES
A superhero? What are your powers?
NICOLAS CAGE
Well, I have a flaming skull for a head. I can ride a bike like I do when human. Oh, and I have a chainlink whip. I guess that’s it.
EVA MENDES
…Seriously, why did this character get its own movie?
NICOLAS decides the audience has endured more than enough of this movie and goes to SAM ELLIOTT one last time before fighting WES BENTLEY.
NICOLAS CAGE
So, since everyone in the audience guessed you’re the old Ghost Rider like 70 minutes ago, do you have any help to offer me before I go kill the bad guy?
SAM ELLIOTT
Yeah. Let me ride with you. I like you. You made a deal with the devil for the right reason: your family. Maybe that puts God on your side.
NICOLAS CAGE
The same God that commands his followers to kill family members if they don’t believe in him? Or some other God?
SAM ELLIOTT
The Hollywood God. The ambiguous, shapeless hodgepodge of positive aspects from various religions and philosophies used to pander to people of every religion simultaneously.
NICOLAS CAGE
Oh, the Bruce Almighty God. Gotcha. If signing the contract was going to put God on my side, why would the Devil have suggested it?
SAM turns into a flaming skeleton on a flaming horse to shut NICOLAS up. They ride together. When they arrive, SAM hands NICOLAS a shotgun.
SAM ELLIOTT
This shotgun might help. We only had the budget to change me into a flaming CGI monstrosity one time, so I’ll be heading back home now.
NICOLAS CAGE
You rode with me in silence just to give me a shotgun when we got here and then turn back around?
SAM ELLIOTT
Yep.
NICOLAS CAGE
Why did people actually watch this movie?
NICOLAS fights with WES BENTLEY.
WES BENTLEY
My name is leeeeegion. For we are… maaaaannnnnyyyyy.
Seriously, he actually says that. Eventually, NICOLAS kills WES. PETER FONDA returns.
PETER FONDA
Nice work, Nicolas. I’ll just remove the curse from you now and you can be on your way.
NICOLAS CAGE
No. I’m going to keep this curse in order to fight you.
PETER FONDA
You mean the curse I had the power to give you and just said I can remove at any time? That’s the curse you’re going to use against me?
NICOLAS CAGE
That’s right. Wherever you go, I’ll be there.
PETER FONDA
Like at the bottom of the “3 DVDs for $5.99″ bin at Wal-Mart?
PETER vanishes.
NICOLAS CAGE
I’ll only use my powers for good, in order to fight the devil.
EVA MENDES
Wouldn’t the best use of your powers be to just show them to people in order to prove that God and the Devil really do exist? Then people would suddenly become super-religious and go to heaven, depriving the Devil of any more soldiers for his army.
NICOLAS CAGE
That’s a good idea. Or, how about I ride around at night and kill muggers?
EVA MENDES
Superhero movies sure have come a long way since the first Superman movie.
NICOLAS CAGE
Yes. We’ve gone from “You will believe a man can fly” to “You will believe a man can have a flaming skull for a head and ride a bike in the dark.”
END
Hilarious! This movie was a waste of my time, energy, and rationality. Favorite part: “…since they have so much chemistry together and every moment they spend on screen is pure bliss for the audience.” Ha!
August 20th, 2007 at 8:41 amI think I’m actually thankful Wes Bentley’s henchdemons aren’t even mentioned. I don’t think it’s an exaggeration to say they’re the most useless enemies in the history of film. Didn’t the water guy die just by, uh, STARING at the Rider?
August 20th, 2007 at 9:26 amAnother winner… Hilarity! I liked the Wal-Mart line best. Kudos, man!
August 20th, 2007 at 10:03 amLOL, sounds like this managed to have more plot holes than Spider-Man 3. Like Phil said, you’ve got another winner here!
August 20th, 2007 at 10:33 amI actually just saw this movie yesterday because someone brought it over and we had absoultely nothing better to do.
August 20th, 2007 at 11:55 amThen, bam! Today there’s a script about it.
Divine Intervention.
“The Hollywood God. The ambiguous, shapeless hodgepodge of positive aspects from various religions and philosophies used to pander to people of every religion simultaneously.”
i just cant stop laughing!
August 20th, 2007 at 12:40 pmThe Bruce Almighty god… that’s awesome. The moment I saw the trailer for this, and Nic Cage’s hair, I knew it was a disaster in the making. You’ve got to love vanity projects where middle-aged actors play characters that are supposed to be in their 20s. Kevin Spacey as Bobby Darin, anyone?
August 20th, 2007 at 2:09 pmDude, I saw this movie just a couple of weeks ago. I was at a friends house, and he rented it on pay per view per my recommendation. After that, I had to pay him back double the cost because of the lost time. Holy hell, what a bad movie.
I also just could not get over the “I only had one more transformation, and I used it to keep you company on the ride over here, but DIDN’T use it to help you fight the bad guy. Good luck dumbass!”
Love the site man, it’s awesome.
August 20th, 2007 at 3:15 pmThis was so hilarious. I loved the Walmart line and you pointing out an actual REALLY dumb line in the movie. I haven’t even seen this movie and it looked retarded; now I know for sure that it is. Almost always your script is actually better than the movie it makes fun of. I have never laughed so hard at something on a computer before I found your site. Keep up the good work!
August 20th, 2007 at 3:34 pmEVA MENDES
…Seriously, why did this character get its own movie?
Seriously.
August 20th, 2007 at 4:18 pmHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! Nice work Rod.
I thank my lucky stars I didn’t go watch this movie.
August 20th, 2007 at 5:46 pmi like the character developement of him sitting and watching monkey karate on the tv. lotta thought went int that scene
August 20th, 2007 at 6:53 pmI wanted to hate this movie when I saw it (I really hate Nic Cage and Ghostrider is boring), but found it oddly entertaining and funny.
August 20th, 2007 at 7:29 pmRod;
Loved the caption under the picture of Shit Rider! Absolutely LOVED the “American Beauty” reference! This is without a doubt the 2nd best script you’ve put up recently, right after the beautiful Bay bashing of “Transformers”! Thanks a lot for keeping us all laughing, and I gave your site a couple of shout-outs on my movie review site. Take care!
August 20th, 2007 at 8:15 pmMwahahahahahahahahaha!
The one good thing about Marvel soullessly and relentlessly churning out it’s entire back catalogue is that it means more hilarious abridges scripts!
I beleive Marvel are working on a treatment for Fucking Ant Fucking Man of all people!
Anyway see you at the abrisged script for the Hulkling movie, Rod!
August 21st, 2007 at 1:31 amnice american beauty reference, homeboy career has so much potential, thora birch has worked more than him
August 21st, 2007 at 3:11 pmIt’s really odd that you keep abridging the shitbucket films my paper has me reviewing.
Glad to see you tearing up this piece of dogshit as earnestly (and with less restraint) than I did. If you had liked this one, it would be like a faith-shattering crisis to a priest.
My pick for worst of ‘07
August 21st, 2007 at 6:27 pmDan L.;
Just read your Batman/Silent Hill crossover! FANTASTIC! You really need to send this to DC Comics!
August 21st, 2007 at 8:04 pmI love it! Film as an art officially dies! And bravo for the American Beauty reference.
August 21st, 2007 at 10:25 pmI really felt a little embarrassed when watching the movie in the theater. Not just for being there, but for Nic Coppola for creating one of the worst performances in recent cinematic history. I’m a little surprised you didn’t make fun of the scenes where he ate jellybeans and giggled at silly monkeys on the TV while listening to the Carpenters.
Too easy?
August 21st, 2007 at 10:25 pmBang on, Rod. For me the single dumbest moment in the whole film had to be when Sam Elliot changes into Cowboy Rider to… err, no one knows why! He actually says he was saving up his one last transformation for all those years - to do nothing! “Here’s a gun, see you later”, and he’s gone from the film! Some help he turned out to be. This was utter balderdash from start to finish and very possibly the worst film of 2007.
August 22nd, 2007 at 5:19 amSo, like, can we shoot Nic Cage now? Has he finally proven beyond a shadow of a doubt that he can’t really act or find a screenplay worth making?
Shit I for one am GLAD he can’t ever find a decent screenplay. He hams it up WAY too much, and he’d ruin any film he touched as far as I’m concerned.
August 22nd, 2007 at 9:50 amThe bit on the Hollywood God is pure gold and so true, good work.
August 22nd, 2007 at 2:20 pmFantastic man. Keep ‘em coming.
August 22nd, 2007 at 8:21 pmYes. We’ve gone from “You will believe a man can fly” to “You will believe a man can have a flaming skull for a head and ride a bike in the dark.”
Best. Closing line. Ever.
August 22nd, 2007 at 11:03 pmLOL, good script again, Rod. Man, you’re a genius!
Maybe they could have saved the movie by making Cage say:
‘Yeah, flaming skull, that’s right, for me it’s a symbol of my individuality, and my belief… in personal freedom!’
August 23rd, 2007 at 8:16 amThis movie was silly.
August 23rd, 2007 at 12:33 pmI loved this Movie!!11ONE!11 Ghost Rider was my best creation! goth-punk teens everywhere saw this movie, it appeals to the Hot Topic generation!!!
You just wait, “Iron Man” comes out soon, so suck it!!
In the meantime whach the real life cartoon, “Who Wants To Be A Super-Hero?!”
August 24th, 2007 at 8:15 amFinally someone who hates this movie as much as me! The best part was the line about Bruce Almighty.
August 24th, 2007 at 5:57 pmthis movie was so horrible and so thoroughly destroyed any semblance of logic that i actually forgot math after watching it.
August 26th, 2007 at 4:47 pmAwesome. BTW, As much as I love your scripts, and I’ve been reading since 2002, I’ve never wanted to see a film get “Abridge’d” more than Rush Hour 3. Easily one of the most painful to watch movies I’ve ever seen.
August 26th, 2007 at 5:53 pmHey, so can, like, a movie have 0 stars? Is that possible? Because it would seem to me that this film would be deserving. one star? How about none.
August 27th, 2007 at 8:43 amLOL Billy, I’d like to see a Rush Hour 3 script too. I saw the first one and part of the second, and my god, Chris Tucker has to be the most annoying actor on Earth. Between those movies and the upcoming Balls of Fury (omg whyyyy), it’s amazing that Chinese rights groups haven’t been more vocal. ;)
August 27th, 2007 at 2:15 pm@Snow and Billy,
Surely (and hopefully) the abridged scripts of Live free or die hard and Harry Potter 5 wil precede that of Rusj Hour 3? Rod?
September 1st, 2007 at 5:44 amI actually think Ghost Rider as a movie could’ve been okay if they hadn’t put Nicolas Cage in it. He was easily the worst part about it - that nonsense with the jellybeans and that ridiculous accent. And yeah - why DID they cast Eva Mendes as his girlfriend when she’s so much younger than him? And so far out of his league he couldn’t even spit on her? Yeah, if they’d used someone other (and younger) than Cage, the movie wouldn’t have been as bad. Would’ve still been a farce, but it wouldn’t have taken itself so seriously. But then, Cage claims to be a diehard Ghost Rider fan, so…
Saw Rush Hour 3 tonight, and I agree, easily the worst movie of recent months. Not sure it’d be worth abridging it, though…too much to mock…
September 1st, 2007 at 5:17 pmI was kind of dissapointed there wasn’t anything about the water demon guys’ death. When I first saw it, I thought he drowned, which was two kinds of ridiculously fucked up, then a friend told me that he was burned to death, which is simply one kind of ridiculously fucked up.
September 1st, 2007 at 11:10 pmThe thing that really raised my eyebrows with this movie, and I did hope you would have smacked them hard for this; Can you hurt the Ghost Rider?
Because he gets stabbed as the ghost rider and needs medical help later for it. However when Ghost Rider surrounded by police and they shoot him up like swiss cheese, no problem later for him when in human form.
Oh well….
Are you going to go back and do some older films? I would like to see “War of the Worlds”.
September 2nd, 2007 at 9:18 pmi don’t think he does films after they’ve left theaters, but a war of the worlds one would be entertaining, and i loved war of the worlds.
September 4th, 2007 at 7:18 pmi agree, many juicy movies are being missed while some that are so incredibly fucking stupid are being pointed out for being stupid. no need for that rly. how do you decide which one to pick rod? i think you should pull standards a bit higher.
September 19th, 2007 at 8:38 pm[QUOTE] i don’t think he does films after they’ve left theaters[/QUOTE]
Well, I think Rod should, considering that most of the movies that deserve to be abridge-scripted are out on DVD and Rod can rent ‘em and watch them.
And another thing: why are there no older movies that are considered “classics” (read: the ones from the 1930s to the 1960s, made in Hollywood’s golden age)? I mean, if Rod is the self-declared hater of all movies, why doesn’t he attack the classics as well as the current ones? If he only goes after one or the other, then he’s just being a hypocritical jerk.
September 21st, 2007 at 4:58 pmCandy, he probably doesn’t go after them because 1) He has a life, and might not have time, and 2) Maybe he just doesn’t want to? He’s not going to review every movie in the world. Last time I checked, this is his site, and he’s doing it on his own time and in his own way. If he doesn’t feel like reviewing an older, classic movie, who cares? It doesn’t mean he likes them. It’s just the way it is. Not all of us have all day to sit around and write abridged scripts. I’m grateful for the scripts we’re getting now, if you want more, go write your own.
September 27th, 2007 at 1:54 pmRod,
One reason I’ve been such a big fan of your site is that you are one of the few people I know of who understands how terrible an actor Nic Cage is. Have you ever noticed that he never opens his eyes more than about a third of the way? Why is that? Does he have some sort of terrible disfigurement of his upper eyeball?
In any case, instead of wasting your time reviewing a bunch of kids’ movies that nobody with a mental age over 13 would defend, why not treat the entire Nic Cage canon as a series and review those? Go through Con Air, Face/Off, City of Angels, The Rock, etc. and demonstrate to everyone who thinks otherwise that Nic Cage is, and always has been, an awful actor. These films are terrible for a more varied slate of reasons than Harry Potter or 007; the only constant I can think of is, of course, Nic Cage. This would definitely be a great project for you to deservedly skewer.
October 8th, 2007 at 4:18 pmi need script(text) of ghost rider .
October 26th, 2007 at 4:45 pmplease send me thats script.
seif1384@yahoo.com
LMAO… “The Bruce Almighty God” and “Film as an artform officially dies” are brilliant!
November 2nd, 2007 at 3:45 pmMy personal most hated moment is when Cage goes to jail for a moment.. only to be recognized by some random inmate as a celebrity whom he lost a bet on.. and all the inmates just randomly jump on him? What the fucking hell.
December 19th, 2007 at 2:32 amEVA MENDES: Superhero movies sure have come a long way since the first Superman movie.
You guys do know the first Superman movie has the worst plot in the history of cinema, don’t you? Nothing Uwe Boll has ever vomited onto a movie screen is as insulting as watching Superman reverse time by reversing Earth’s rotation, and that’s only the third most embarrassingly retarded moment in that movie. You know something went horribly wrong when you have a story about a guy whose idea of a disguise is to wear glasses and that doesn’t even make it to the top ten of the stupidest ideas in the movie.
As idiotic as Ghost Rider was, I don’t recall any moment when the villain managed to fool an entire squad of soldiers guarding a nuclear missile by using tactics never before seen outside a Bugs Bunny cartoon. Or when the evil henchman commits the most retarded mistake in the history of cinema, a mistake that is not only the central pillar of the plot, but the one and only reason the good guy wins.
April 19th, 2008 at 12:43 pm“GET OVER HERE!”
The only quote in the movie worth hearing! [Obscure Mortal kombat reference]
May 4th, 2008 at 4:23 pm