AGENTS OF SHIELD
Along came a Rider
SEASON 4 US BROADCAST ABC from 20 September UK BROADCAST E4, TBC
returning SHOW! While Marvel is conquering all before it on both the big screen and netflix, the network TV branch of the MCU is finding life rather more challenging. Following the cancellation of
Agent Carter and the decision not to pick up Mockingbird spin-off Marvel’s Most Wanted,
Agents Of SHIELD now finds itself the only MCU show left standing on ABC – and it’s been relegated to a later timeslot.
the best way to save the day? Call for a heavyweight comic book icon, a character who – albeit in a different incarnation – has already headlined two movies: ghost rider.
“We weren’t given a list of characters [we could use],” says SHIELD’s co-showrunner Jeff Bell. “SHIELD’s original mission was always to find the unusual, the unexpected, and then classify it and see whether or not it needed to be contained. So whether that was the inhumans or a character with a flaming skull, it gives us an opportunity to get into a world we’ve never seen before.”
While the two nicolas Cage ghost rider movies centred on Johnny Blaze, here we’ll see the robbie reyes version of the character, with SHIELD newcomer gabriel Luna the man getting his skull set on fire.
“[in the auditions] he had a great strength and intensity,” Marvel TV boss Jeph Loeb tells SFX. “But also, when you needed it, there was a ‘vulnerable-ness’ where you go, ‘Oh, there’s something else going on behind this guy,’ as opposed to just an intense vengeance theme. there’s a humanity, and we really love the contrast of that.”