Earlier today, it was reported that Idris Elba, who will be seen next summer in Kenneth Branagh's Thor, has a multi-picture deal with Marvel that suggests we will see him again in another superhero film. The story raised the issue of playing two characters in the same superhero universe. Whether it's a misguided attempt to cancel them out, however, he's now adding a third comic book movie to his resume, albeit one with Fox.

THR reports that Elba and CSI: Miami's Johnny Whitworth are currently in negotiations to star in Ghost Rider 2: The Spirit of Vengeance for Columbia Pictures. In the film, Johnny Blaze, played by the retuning Nicolas Cage, has gone into hiding in Eastern Europe, but is found and hired by a sect to take down the devil, played by Ciaran Hinds, who "who wants to take over his mortal son’s body on the kid’s birthday." Elba will play an warrior monk with a drinking problem who is assigned to find Blaze while Whitworth plays for the other team as a criminal hired by the devil to find his son. The film will be written and directed by Mark Neveldine and Brian Taylor, who are working based on a story by David S. Goyer.

I'm not sure I know a single person who has asked for a sequel to Ghost Rider (that movie was just plain awful), but adding Idris Elba has never hurt anything. Let's look at this from the optimist point of view: it really couldn't get any worse than this.