“Heated Rivalry” star Connor Storrie is in talks to play the villain opposite Ryan Gosling in Marvel’s “Ghost Rider” film.
Shawn Levy is directing the film, from a screenplay by “Star Wars: Starfighter” screenwriter Jonathan Tropper. “Ghost Rider” is scheduled for release on July 28, 2028. Levy and Gosling are also producing the project alongside Marvel Studios chief Kevin Feige, Louis D’Esposito and Stephen Broussard. Executive producers are Richie Palmer and Jessie Henderson.
Landing a Marvel movie would be a big win for Storrie, who gained pop culture notoriety playing handsome Russian hockey player Ilya Romanov in “Heated Rivalry.” As the story goes, the Texas native waited tables at Laurel Grill in Culver City before being offered this game-changing TV role; He has since parlayed that attention into a Primetime Emmy nomination as guest host of “Saturday Night Live” and a supporting role alongside Billie Eilish in Sarah Polley’s film “The Bell Jar” for Focus Features. The highly anticipated second season of “Heated Rivalry” — which focuses on the rival-lovers journey between Storrie’s Ilya and Hudson Williams’ Shane Hollander — is currently filming and will premiere on HBO Max next spring. Storrie is represented by CAA, Linden Entertainment, Shelter PR and Yorn Levine.
As for “Ghost Rider,” the project is coming together quickly, with filming planned in New York next year. Feige made the surprise announcement of the film during Marvel’s Hall H presentation at San Diego Comic-Con this summer.
“As you know, this is a character I’ve wanted to play for a very long time,” Gosling told the enthusiastic crowd.
For years, Gosling was Marvel fans’ first choice to star in a “Ghost Rider” film after Nicolas Cage previously played motorcycle stuntman Johnny Blaze in a 2007 origin film and its 2011 sequel. In the comics and these films, Johnny sells his soul to the devil Mephisto in order to cure his father’s cancer. When the rights reverted to Marvel Studios after those films, Gabriel Luna played the Robby Reyes version of the character – a young Latino guy – on the ABC TV show “Agents of SHIELD.”
That said, Marvel has yet to confirm which version of Ghost Rider Gosling will play, so it’s also unclear which villain Storrie would portray. Mephisto was recently introduced in the MCU, played by Sacha Baron Cohen, in the Disney+ series “Ironheart”.
THR broke the news of Storrie’s potential involvement in the film. Marvel Studios does not comment on casting.
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