One half of the Neveldine/Taylor directing duo is set to make his solo debut.  Variety reports that director Mark Neveldine will helm the thriller The Vatican Tapes sans his usual collaborator Brian Taylor.  The two made a name for themselves with the intense 2006 thriller Crank and continued their signature hyper-stylized camerawork on the 2009 sequel Crank: High Voltage and the actioner Gamer.  Most recently the two helmed Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance, but it appears that they’re ready to see how they fare as solo artists.  Neveldine isn’t the only one striking out on his own, as Taylor is set to write and direct a feature film adaptation of the video game Twisted Metal.

The Vatican Tapes has been in development for a number of years.  The supernatural thriller centers on a series of events that unfold after a tape gets leaked from the Vatican displaying an exorcism that goes wrong.  Though the premise sounds all too familiar given the bevy of found footag/exorcism/found footage-exorcism horror films that we’ve seen over the past few years, Neveldine is sure to bring an interesting visual approach to the pic.

I generally don’t like to check out extended clips of footage from films ahead of their release. Call me old fashioned but, similar to how I try and avoid cherry picking music singles before listening to the entire album, I like to think of records and movies as complete bodies of work. Of course, I say all of this only to preface breaking my own general rule. I implore you to watch the first 12 minutes of writer/director/actress Brit Marling’s Sound of My Voice. I did, I don’t regret a single moment of it, and now I can’t wait to check out the entire film as soon as possible.

All self-contradiction aside, in this week’s “Top 5″ installment you’ll find Ghost Rider Spirit of Vengeance interviews with talent like Nicolas Cage, Idris Elba, Johnny Whitworth, and directors Neveldine/Taylor, a recap of our 21 Jump Street set visit, trailers and a featurette for Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter, Transformers 4 news, and Avengers, Star Wars, and G.I. Joe: Retaliation toy images from the 2012 Toy Fair. Check out a brief recap and link to each after the jump.

With Neveldine/Taylor’s Ghost Rider Spirit of Vengeance opening today, I recently interviewed a lot of the cast in New York City.  In the sequel, Johnny Blaze (Cage) is hiding out in Eastern Europe when a motor-cycle riding warrior monk (Idris Elba) recruits him to save a young boy (Fergus Riordan) from the Devil (Ciaran Hinds). The film also stars Violante Placido, Anthony Head, Christopher Lambert and Johnny Whitworth. For more on Ghost Rider Spirit of Vengeace, here’s my Romania set visit, on set interviews, new images, five movie clips, and 12 minutes of behind the scenes footage from when the production was filming in Europe.

During my exclusive video interview with Mark Neveldine and Brain Taylor, we talked about how they got involved in the project, working with Nic Cage, the stunts and action sequences, deleted scenes, test screenings, what will be on the eventual Blu-ray/DVD, filming in Eastern Europe, and so much more.  If you’re a fan of Neveldine/Taylor, you’re going to love the interview.  Hit the jump to watch.

With Ghost Rider Spirit of Vengeance opening next weekend, Sony has just released the EPK (electronic press kit) and it’s loaded with cool stuff from the film.  Just a little while ago we posted five clips, and now we’ve got around twelve minutes of behind the scenes footage from when the production was filming in Romania and across Eastern Europe.

In addition, for fans of directors Neveldine/Taylor, the footage features the two doing some crazy stunts to get a shot, and it’s also got the entire cast (Nicolas Cage , Violante Placido, Fergus Riordan, Ciaran Hinds, Idris Elba, Christopher Lambert, Anthony Head, and Johnny Whitworth) filming stunts and acting crazy on the set.  Hit the jump to watch and look for my exclusive video interviews with the cast next week.

We’ve been provided with five movie clips from the upcoming sequel Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance to share with our readers.  Nicolas Cage returns at the titular Ghost Rider, and Crank directors Mark Neveldine and Brian Taylor bring their signature visual style to the comic book franchise.  Cage finds himself tasked with rescuing a young boy from the grip of the Devil.  The film also stars Violante Placido, Fergus Riordan, Ciaran Hinds, Idris Elba, Christopher Lambert, Anthony Head, and Johnny Whitworth.

Hit the jump to watch the clips and click here for our previous coverage on the film which includes Steve’s set visit and tons of on set interviews with the cast. Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance opens in 3D February 17th.

Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance, the sequel that no one wanted but which we will all nonetheless watch at least once in our lives to see Nicholas Cage pissing fire, hits theatres next month. In anticipation, the interwebs were flooded with a torrent of images from the film, featuring a heavily tattooed (and apparently still-alive) Christopher Lambert, helmers Mark Neveldine and Bryan Taylor (Crank) making a scene ten times more awesome by directing it on rollerblades, and Cage’s CGI alter-ego not only pissing fire, but vomiting it. Hit the jump for a bevy of images (some of which we’ve seen before) from Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance.

With less than a month to go before directors Mark Neveldine and Brian Taylor’s Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance hits screens, a new behind-the-scenes featurette has been released. While Nicolas Cage remains the star of the film (upstaged only slightly by the flaming skull of Ghost Rider himself), directors Neveldine and Taylor are the focus in this short piece. Known for their insane camera work on films like Crank and Gamer, Neveldine/Taylor have only gotten crazier. The featurette spends as much time spotlighting the movie’s stuntwork professionals  as it does the directors themselves.

Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance also stars Idris Elba and Ciaran Hinds and opens February 17^th. You can check out Steve’s set visit here. Hit the jump to check out the explosive featurette.

Nicholas Cage, Idris Elba and Violante Placido are walking into a very large cave.  As they get further inside, I notice the walls and huge metal shelving units are filled with hundreds of semi-automatic machine guns, sniper rifles, and boxes of ammo.  The cave even has old-school weapons like swords and armor decorating the walls.  It’s easily the biggest arms cache I’ve ever seen, and I can only imagine what they’ll be used for.  As I take in the extremely cool surroundings, I hear director Brian Taylor say cut.  I guess now would be a good time to mention I’m standing on a soundstage about forty minutes outside Bucharest, Romania.

Let me back up a second.

It’s Sunday, February 20, 2011 and I’m sitting on a plane flying back from Europe.  A few days ago I got to visit the set of the Ghost Rider Spirit of Vengeance with a few other online reporters and we were treated to a really great day filled with awesome interviews and I learned a tremendous amount about the movie.  While I have serious issues with the first Ghost Rider, everything I learned on set tells me they have a much better story and a much better team of filmmakers and actors trying to bring Spirit of Vengeance to life.  For a full recap, hit the jump.

While fans might have a lot of concerns with the Mark Neveldine/Brian Taylor-directed sequel Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance, they can now remove “legal battle over property rights” from that list. After the first Ghost Rider film debuted in 2007, comic book author and co-creator Gary Friedrich was none too pleased. In 1971, Friedrich, also known for his work on Sgt. Fury and his Howling Commandos, was a freelancer working for Marvel. Absent from the comics world for decades since then, Friedrich popped up to raise a rights issue in 2004 when Marvel had announced  plans to release the first Ghost Rider film. Yesterday, less than two months from the February 17^th release of the sequel, a New York federal judge ruled that Ghost Rider is a Marvel property, case closed. Or maybe not. Hit the jump for more on this case.

A few days ago, I got to sit down with director Brian Taylor for an exclusive interview on Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance.  With a February 17, 2012 release date fast approaching, Taylor is currently in post-production finishing up the movie.   However, while the movie is still almost five months from getting released, they already have a few deleted scenes and Taylor says the sequel will be 90 minutes (the original was 114).

During the interview we talked about where they are in the editing process, the experience of post converting to 3D and his thoughts on 3D, what to expect from Idris Elba and Nicolas Cage in the film, the deleted scenes, the run time, what will be on the DVD/Blu-ray (they captured thousands of hours of footage: interviews, features, behind-the-scenes stuff), what it was like to film in Eastern Europe (he tells some crazy stories), will there be other Marvel characters in the sequel, the full trailer, and a lot more.  Trust me, if you’re a fan of Neveldine/Taylor and have been looking forward to Ghost Rider 2, you’re going to like this interview.  Hit the jump to watch.

New posters for Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance, Melancholia, and Abduction are now available online. Beginning with Ghost Rider, the film stars Nicolas Cage, Idris Elba, and Ciaran Hinds. The pic centers on Cage’s reprised Johnny Blaze who, while kicking it in Eastern Europe, is called upon to stop the Devil (Hinds) from taking human form. Although I prefer the teaser promos found at this year’s San Diego Comic-Con, this new sheet seems effective enough in positioning the film as a grittier take on the character than its predecessor. The new Melancholia poster is essentially the full, hi-res shot of a Kirsten Dunst image we seen back in April while the Abduction sheet features star Taylor Lautner running from a city skyline.

Check out each of the posters after the jump. Directed by Mark Neveldine and Brian Taylor, Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance opens on February 17th, 2012. Written/directed by Lars von Trier, Melancholia will hit VOD platforms on October 7th before opening in theaters on November 11th. Directed by John Singleton, Abduction will be released on September 23rd.

For Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance, Nicolas Cage is back as Johnny Blaze, a man who struggles with his curse as the devil’s bounty hunter. Hiding out in a remote part of Eastern Europe, he is recruited by a secret sect to save a young boy from the devil and, although he is reluctant to embrace the power of the Ghost Rider again, he knows it is the only way to protect the boy, and possibly rid himself of his curse forever. With a new villain, a new sidekick and a new look, Ghost Rider is now seen through the eyes of filmmakers Mark Neveldine and Brian Taylor.

Following their Comic-Con panel presentation in Hall H (read our recap here), co-stars Nicolas Cage and Idris Elba, along with directors Neveldine and Taylor, talked about what they wanted to do with the story and character this time, how the chose not to consider the first movie in making this one, pushing it to the limits for stunts, all of the extras they’ll have for the eventual DVD/Blu-ray release, and what they enjoy about the Comic-Con experience. Check out what they had to say after the jump:

Sony packed the house in Hall H today, and opening the panel was our first look at Neveldine/Taylor’s Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance. The sequel stars Nicolas Cage, Ciaran Hinds, Idris Elba, Johnny Whitworth, and James Remar. While some may be a bit skeptical of the sequel, let me assure that this is a very different movie. Seriously, this panel was a bit insane: at the end of the trailer Ghost Rider literally pissed fire. Hit the jump for my recap of the panel, which included our first look at footage from the film in 3D as well as a featurette showcasing the death-defying nature of Neveldine/Taylor’s directing style.

The Nicolas Cage-starred Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance recently wrapped filming in Europe, and co-director Brian Taylor recently sat down and spoke at length about the project. While 2007’s Ghost Rider, starring Nicolas Cage, wasn’t necessarily met with an enthusiastic response, Taylor and co-director Mark Neveldine took a vastly different approach when they came on board for the sequel:

“We basically said, we want to do it, [would] absolutely love to do it, but it’s gotta be 100% different from the first movie, everything, except for Nic. We want the character to look different, feel different, sound different. The backstory of the character’s different, the origin of the story is expanded upon in ways that the first movie didn’t hint at, at all. The location’s different, the whole cast is different; the only thing that’s the same is Nic…It’s pretty much a reboot, only with the same actor, which makes it: a requel. Or a seboot, I can’t decide which one I like better.”

This definitely sounds like good news for fans who were unhappy with the first go-around. Hit the jump for more from Taylor on the project, including what attracted him to the film, his thoughts on villain Blackout, and when we can expect to see the first footage.

Videos and photos from the set of the Ghost Rider sequel, Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance, have leaked online.  As we previously reported, filming began on November 2nd.  There’s nothing in the video or images that will blow your mind (although I think the only thing that might surprise me set-footage-wise would be Nicolas Cage being set on fire), but if you’re eager to see the awful hairpiece and a cool motorcycle (but not the decked-out Ghost Rider bike), then you’ll want to take a look.

Hit the jump to check out the video and the images.  Directed by Mark Neveldine and Brian Taylor (Crank), Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance also stars Ciarán Hinds, Idris Elba and Violante Placido.  The film is due out on February 17, 2012.