Hulu reportedly won’t move forward on a Marvel series based on the Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. version of the character Ghost Rider, according to Deadline, which says that there was a “creative impasse” between the creative team and the streaming platform.
Portrayed by Gabriel Luna, Robbie Reyes appeared in a nine-episode arc on Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., and was driven to vengeance after being killed in a gang shootout. After being brought back to life and given special powers, he set off to exact vengeance against the people who tried to kill him, eventually running into S.H.I.E.L.D. agents. According to Loeb, Marvel TV had “always [known] that we were going to do something with Ghost Rider, we were just waiting for the right place to put it,” and Hulu appeared to be the ideal place to feature such a show, given the success of other projects, like Runaways.
Back in August, Marvel TV Chief Jeph Loeb revealed that his studio was working on a variety of new television projects, including a live-action continuation of Ghost Rider, who was first featured in an arc during Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.‘s fourth season. The TV series would have aired in 2020, and according to Deadline, Helstrom is still in the works.
The idea was to put together a series of interconnected, horror-oriented TV shows for the streaming platform, which would include Ghost Rider and Helstrom:
“We started having the same conversation, which was there is in the comic book world the Spirit of Vengeance, and they are this sort of unusual group of characters, which involve Ghost Rider, which involve Helstrom, which involve Helstrom’s sister, Anna. We suddenly saw that there were three or four shows that we could put together that we now refer to as Adventure into Fear.”
The character has been adapted before, prior to the introduction of the Marvel Cinematic Universe: Nicolas Cage portrayed the character in the 2007 film (and sequel). Deadline reports that it’s not clear if the series will be shopped elsewhere.
The move comes after Marvel unveiled an ambitious Phase 4 slate of projects at San Diego Comic-Con, which included a number of TV projects destined for Disney’s streaming platform, Disney+: The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, WandaVision, Loki, and Hawkeye, and followed up with another handful of shows, including Ms. Marvel, Moon Knight, and She-Hulk. That’s already a lot of shows, but it’s not inconceivable that we’ll see the character reappear somewhere down the road.
