Has Nic Cage traded in his Elvis fetish for a cowboy obsession? That’s the question I’d ask if I’d been in the room with the SuperheroHype.com guys when they interviewed him. Reportedly, the Ichabod Crane like actor showed up wearing a gigantic cowboy hat. He was there to talk about the next superhero movie flop, Ghost Rider, in which Cage stars as Johnny Blaze, a guy who allows himself to be possessed by a “vengeful spirit” (whatever that means) to have sex with Evan Mendes. Seems like a good trade to me.

In the interview, Cage reveals that he played the character like he was stuck in a dental chair. “So if you were somebody that was experiencing a great deal of pain, like in a dental chair you try to relax by listening to dentist's music or things like that, so I'm trying to play Johnny Blaze more in that direction than the hard drinking and smoking bad ass.” That’s fine by me, since no one is going to see this movie anyway.

But the really big Nic Cage news is about a movie that people actually will see, a sequel to Cage’s surprise hit, National Treasure. Lord knows Disney needs the success. The Hollywood Reporter tells me that Disney is already working with Jerry Bruckheimer Films to develop National Treasure 2, having hired Gregory Poirier to put together a script. Poirier is the guy who wrote the first draft for the Swiss Family Robinson remake we told you about yesterday, and he’s also responsible for a suspicious movie called For Your Thighs Only written under the pseudonym of Clinton Darke. It’s a safe bet to assume that last one contains a little nudity.

The best news here is that the first film’s director John Turteltaub is a lock to helm the followup. If he’s back, there’s a good chance they’ll be able to get Cage back as well. Whether they should actually make a sequel is another matter, the original concept was lucky to work as well as it did. It’ll be a tough thing to get it to work twice.