Doug Jones as the Silver Surfer in 'Fantastic 4: Rise of the Silver Surfer'

Since the news surfaced that Fox were discussing a Silver Surfer movie the interwebs have been alive with chatter and speculation.  The two misconceptions hat have caught my eye the most are that the ideas that the new Silver Surfer looks awesome and that Doug Jones has been cast in the title role.

First, the film is only in a discussion stage at the moment.  No official announcement has been made.  Images of the Silver Surfer that have been posted with the announcement are images taken from Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer. So yes, whilst the Surfer looks awesome in those images, they are not from the proposed movie.

Second, a lot of people seem to think Doug Jones, who played the physical Silver Surfer in Rise of the Silver Surfer (Laurence Fishburne provided the voice), has been cast as the title character in the upcoming movie.  Whilst many fans are keen to see Doug Jones reprise his role as the Silver Surfer, the fact is Jones’ involvement is nothing more than rumor – at least at this stage.

It is simply too early in the development process to discuss the Silver Surfer’s look or the cast.

Hopefully that will all change soon.

Now that we know 20th Century Fox are “working on” a Silver Surfer movie, many fans are wondering if Fox will continue to develop Babylon 5 guru J. Michael Straczynski’s original screenplay or if they’ll head in an all new direction.

If you didn’t already know, Straczynski wrote a script for a Silver Surfer movie that was slated to be a sequel to Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer. Here’s what Straczynski had to say about the premise of his screenplay in an interview with AMCTV:

I was writing it as FF2 was about to come out, and the theory was for it to pick up literally the next frame after the FF2 movie, where you find out why Silver Surfer was there and what happened to him. We would have seen Galactus, his home world, what happened and him trying to get back there, because now that he’s betrayed Galactus, he’s concerned his home world might be in jeopardy.

The script is pretty good, I like it, but whether or not it goes into production, I have no idea.

With the announcement by Fox that they intend to reboot Fantastic Four completely, it would seem reasonable to speculate that Straczynski’s screenplay might now either be out the window or, if it is to be used, will require a certain amount of reworking.  It would be doubtful that the studio would be disappointed enough in a franchise that they would reboot it whilst at the same time being willing to fund a spin-off sequel to the franchise that they no longer want to continue with.

Of course, the corollory to that notion is that Straczynski is now as big a Hollywood name as he is a fanboy favorite, thanks to three Oscar nominations for Changeling, a film he penned.  He also wrote the upcoming Ninja Assassin which is sure to be a hit with The Matrix team behin dit, and has a truck load of films including some epics (such as Lensman) on the way.  So whilst it seems reasonable to speculate that Fox might want an all new direction for the Silver Surfer movie that distances it from Fantastic Four, they may also want to retain Straczynski for the screenplay.

Perhaps the answer will reside in just how tied to Rise of the Silver Surfer Straczynki’s sequel screenplay is.  If only loosely, it may be that the Silver Surfer movie could be developed faster than you might think if the script is already good to go.

Let’s hope so.

Jack Kirby's Silver Surfer (click to enlarge)

Jacob Kurtzberg (August 28, 1917 – February 6, 1994), aka Jack Kirby, created or co-created many of the most well known Marvel characters such as Captain America, the X-Men, Hulk, and of course, the Silver Surfer.

There has always been contention over Kirby’s rights of ownership to the characters he created or helped to create. For years he battled Marvel in an effort to have the rights to his characters returned to him.  It’s a long story I won’t go into here, except to say that although Kirby has since passed away, his longstanding battle is about to heat up.

Bleeding Cool are reporting that the estate of Jack Kirby has issued termination of copyright notices to Marvel, Disney and any studio that produces films based on characters he created or co-created. It’s a lawsuit that will settle the ownership rights contention issue once and for all.

If the Kirby Estate wins, the upshot is they would then be in a position to negotiate with Marvel over terms to continue publishing comics based on Kirby’s work.  I imagine that position extends into Marvel/Disney’s use of that property in film.

Might this have an effect on the Silver Surfer movie?

According to Nikke Finke at Deadline Hollywood, if the Kirby Estate’s claims are found valid, they would regain their copyright ownership in 2014.  This would seem to indicate that, at the very least, the first Silver Surfer movie would escape unscathed.

Of course, if the Silver Surfer movie franchise extends to more than one film, then it would seem this lawsuit could have an impact. Finke reports that Marvel/Disney and the film studios would still retain trademark ownership, so it is my guess that if the Kirby Estate wins the suit, I imagine the issue will predominately be on how much the Kirby Estate gets in royalties from the film studios which, in turn, becomes an additional financial burden for the film studios.

Either way, if you’re interested in Silver Surfer movies, this lawsuit is something to keep up with as it unfolds.

More as it comes to hand.

A scene from Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer

Today marks a pivotal day for fans of the Silver Surfer, for it was reported that a live-action Silver Surfer movie is in development.

The news comes from Variety who state that in addition to a reboot of Daredevil, Twentieth Century Fox are also “working on a Silver Surfer film.”

Unfortunately that’s all the information that’s been released so far.

More news as it comes to hand!