A few months back, Hulu ordered a show about Ghost Rider, one of Marvel’s less exposed superheroes, straight to series. There have been a bunch of incarnations of the character throughout the years, but this one would have revolved around Robbie Reyes, a young auto-mechanic who gets consumed by hellfire and supernaturally tied to a demon. What with the flaming skull and the biker gear, he’s one of the harder core Marvel heroes.
The Hulu show would have starred Gabriel Luna, who played Reyes on Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. But it’s not to be. The Hollywood Reporter has it that the series is dead in the water.
This never would have happened if Nicholas Cage had been involved.
Unlike the Marvel shows in production for Disney’s upcoming streaming service — stuff like Loki, WandaVision, and The Falcon and the Winter Soldier — Ghost Rider was being made by ABC Signature Studios. Another superhero show from the same people, Helstrom, is still going forward. Hulu also has a bunch of animated Marvel shows on the way, including MODOK, Hit-Monkey, Tigra & Dazzler Show, Howard the Duck and The Offenders, which will feature a team-up between characters from all of those shows.
Non-MCU Marvel shows are in a strange place right now. While the Disney+ shows are set in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, complete with the actors we all know from the movies, Hulu is doing its own thing and setting up its own Marvel universe, not unlike what Netflix did with shows like Daredevil, Jessica Jones and Luke Cage. And that ended in disaster, with Netflix and Marvel squabbling over the rights to the point where the shows were just cancelled.
Hulu’s shows have a much better chance to carve out a space for themselves, since Disney owns both Marvel and Hulu. It wants them both to do well, but you have to wonder if there aren’t people at Disney arguing that the company shouldn’t put all its Marvel eggs in one streaming basket.
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In any case, goodbye, Ghost Rider. It’s been fun…or it would have been, if you had existed.
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