The Hulu streaming service has done what neither the powers of Satan, nor Wes Bentley, could manage this week, defeating the Ghost Rider at long last. Deadline reports today that the Disney-owned streaming service won’t be moving forward with a TV series centered on the chain-toting, hat-adverse Spirit of Vengeance, whose most recent, non-Nic-Cage-y incarnation debuted in a 2016 arc of Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D., and would have been portrayed in the series by a returning Gabriel Luna.
In the wake of Marvel’s high profile break-up with Netflix, Hulu has been the studio’s go-to place for some of its more low-key shows, i.e., the stuff that couldn’t be reliably held back to push Disney+ subscriptions. In practical terms, that mostly just meant Marvel’s Runaways, at least at the moment, but the teen-focused series was set to be joined shortly by the Ghost Rider series, as well as a still-in-the-works series based around devil-baby-made-good Daimon Hellstrom. (Meanwhile, Agents runs for one more season on ABC, while Cloak And Dagger are both hanging out over on Freeform.)
Per Deadline, plans for the Ghost Rider show apparently broke down over a “creative impasse” between Hulu and the show’s creators, including, presumably, showrunner Stephen Lightfoot, whose previous credits include executive producing on shows ranging from The Punisher to Hannibal. We have no idea what “creative impasse” means in these circumstances—Too many sick, on-fire motorcycle jumps over screaming demons? Too few?—but the Deadline report states that it’s not clear yet whether the series is well and truly dead, or if it’ll try to get some vengeance by shopping itself around to some other network looking to make a TV show about a brooding ghost biker with a flaming skull for a head.