Nic Cage waited for this?

I should be writing about Kong, but I probably won't make it until next weekend.
In the meantime, however, "Ghost Rider" has been pushed back from next summer to the following February. And the suits are talking it up as a strategic move, which is like a coach with a losing record getting "full support" from the front office.
Considering how Cage is a comicbook fan, stole his stage name from a comicbook, named his kid after a comicbook character, and how he wanted to be Tim Burton's Superman, one would think that an actor of his notoriety and (too often unused) talent would attach himself to something with the commercial and creative gravitas of Batman Begins.

Nope. He chose "Ghost Rider", directed by the inimitable Mark Stephen Johnson. Johnson brought us Daredevil and, along with J.Lo, caused Ben Affleck to take a hiatus from the public eye excluding Sox games, political rallies and conventions, and Jennifer Garner's labia.

Did I mention that "Daredevil" sucked? Johnson drew from the right source material, but made a movie that had no connection to it. No character. No emotion. Little plot. All sizzle, no steak, and the sizzle wasn't much to speak of.
The movie did well for February and spawned a sequel (hmmm, with Garner and not the title character). But really, did Cage finish watching DD, grab his blackberry, ring his agent and tell him "I HAVE to make a movie with this Johnson guy!"? Somehow I don't see it.

In the long run, "Ghost Rider" is a movie that I would only care about if it looked like it was going to be killer. But Cage was going to be the leader of the pack for the next generation of actors when I was in college. "Raising Arizona" "Vampire's Kiss" "Wild at Heart" "Moonstruck" "Peggy Sue Got Married" He was daring and a damn fine actor, to boot.

Now, we've got "Face Off", two Michael Bay movies and one that wants to be: "National Treasure" And can't forget "Gone in Sixty Seconds"

We'll give him partial props for "Leaving Las Vegas" and "Bringing Out the Dead" because it don't cost nothin'.

Maybe in a few years he can play the crystal powered projection of Jor-El. It would be a step up from "Ghost Rider".