[Sinister]

Initially, I was going to wait to post a thread about this very subject until something of inerest and import came up and toady it has. From USA Today:

USA Today has debuted the first photo of The Silver Surfer from Fantastic Four: Rise of The Silver Surfer, opening in theaters on June 15. We'll be providing you with a higher resolution version of the image on Friday morning.

Here is what the newspaper says about the character:

With computer-generated imagery techniques similar to those used to create Gollum in The Lord of the Rings, the slippery Surfer, voiced by Doug Jones, "will look somewhere between gun metal and fluid metallics so you can see the body motion, the breathing, the muscle tone, the mood," says Marvel Studios CEO Avi Arad.

The Surfer's mood is key to the story. After striking a deal with the evil Galactus to save his planet, the once-human Surfer wreaks havoc throughout the cosmos. "He is a highly emotional being, trapped inside fluid metal," Arad says.

The new teaser trailer for the 20th Century Fox sequel will be exclusively in theaters on Friday (12/22), attached to "Night at the Museum."

Just so there is no confusion: Galactus isn't evil. Such concepts are beneath him as he is a Force of Nature. Comic book geeks such as JT, RAXL, Z, Pete, myself and a few others already know this. Seeing that Avi Arad oversimplifies Galactus' role in the scheme of things, doesn't give me a feel good attitude about the whole production. I shouldn't be too surprised, after all, look at the wonderful job they did with Doctor Doom in the first one.

Norrin Radd (Silver Surfer) looks okay though.

 

[grapegrl]

Hmmm...he doesn't look as cheesy and cartoony as I was anticipating. I actually liked the first movie...it was a cute, if mildly annoying at times, fluffy popcorn flick. Hopefully the next movie will be a little tighter. I'm not a comic book follower by any means, so I have no vested interest in these movies based on comic books sticking strictly to canon. I do sympathize, though, with people who are disappointed when movies fall short of their original source material. I was more than a bit let down by the last installment of the Harry Potter film franchise.

edited bad spelling...shame on me!

 

[Johnny Thunder]

Just so there is no confusion: Galactus isn't evil. Such concepts are beneath him as he is a Force of Nature. Comic book geeks such as JT, RAXL, Z, Pete, myself and a few others already know this. Seeing that Avi Arad oversimplifies Galactus' role in the scheme of things, doesn't give me a feel good attitude about the whole production. I shouldn't be too surprised, after all, look at the wonderful job they did with Doctor Doom in the first one. [/SIZE][/FONT]

Norrin Radd (Silver Surfer) looks okay though.

I agree with both of your points. This makes it seem like The Big G will be a 'stereotype' bad guy (will he have a moustache to twirl?) and given the first film's story, I'm not overly optimistic.

But yeah the Surfer at least looks cool.

 

[Johnny Thunder]

Here's an interview with the FF's Alicia Masters and James Franco on SM3 -

http://forum.newsarama.com/showthread.php?t=95144

 

[RAXL]

Wait, how can GOD be evil?
I mean, that's who Galactus was suppossed to be. God. Now he's evil? Can't we just say he's hungry, and leave it at that?

Why not just make the Surfer look like the T-1000, and be done with it?

And, his mood is the key to the film?:googly:

 

[Sinister]

The official site is now up: http://www.fantasticfourmovie.com/

 

[Sinister]

The trailer is up on the site now. It has a great sequence where Johnny Storm, in full Flame On mode is chasing the Silver Surfer through New York. Alas, no Galactus though. The more I see the more the sequel just might be worth going to see in the theaters instead of waiting for the DVD release.

 

[Johnny Thunder]

I thought the same thing about the Johnny/Surfer chase scene - it got my geek blood pumpin'

 

[Johnny Thunder]

Part of a Newsrama interview with Screenwriter Don Payne:

DRE: I know you can't talk too much about the Fantastic Four sequel.

Payne: I had a feeling this was going to come up.

DRE: If there's anything you can't tell me, just let me know.

Payne: Believe me, I'd get executed on the spot. This phone's probably bugged right now. I'm on the Fox lot so they watch you like a hawk. The reaction to what has been released from the movie has been favorable but we're six months out. I hope people are still as enthusiastic then. There are still a lot of surprises and I think it's going to be good.

DRE: One of the things that's interesting about you writing the Fantastic Four sequel is that when Simpsons writers work on other projects it is usually comedies. It is really cool that you wrote a film that isn't a straight up comedy. Was that difficult to make happen?

Payne: I've been trying to write features since I moved to Los Angeles years ago and I wound up on The Simpsons which is a show that I was really a huge fan of. But I had always wanted to do movies and I was really pushing my agent to get me out there and certainly Super-Ex helped me take that step. But I'd also been meeting with Marvel for a long time. I felt that if I put myself in front of them enough I'd finally wear them down and they'd give me an assignment. But I got this gig because studio executives here had responded to my original script of Super-Ex before the film came out and I'd met with Marvel and they liked me and also liked the spec so that's how I got the gig. I just kept pushing for it and went in and pitched my take on it and wrote a draft. I've always been a big comic book fan and a particularly big Fantastic Four fan. So in my mind it wasn't that much of a stretch but I am certainly lucky to have the opportunity.

DRE: How many drafts did you do?

Payne: They all blend together. Officially it's probably two or three but you're constantly fixing little things. It becomes a gray area.

DRE: But you didn't work with the other writer that's credited on the IMDB, [Twin Peaks co-creator] Mark Frost.

Payne: I never met Mark Frost or read his script. It was a parallel development and we were both working independently on versions of the script. I lucked out [laughs]. I don't know Mark Frost but I know his work. He wrote these cool Sherlock Holmesian Victorian fantasy novels. One is called The 6 Messiahs. They're really good and entertaining and I'm surprised that they haven't been made into movies yet.

DRE: How much does the sequel resemble the comic books?

Payne: As much as I can get in there [laughs]. You can't do a literal translation from script to screen otherwise the first film would be talking about beating the pinkos into outer space. You've got to do what you can with the story, the characters you have and the actors. I think Kerry Washington is great and if there is a third film and we do the Puppet Master story, I'm hoping Kerry would have a lot more to do because I think she's a really talented woman.

DRE: So you're saying there is no Puppet Master in Fantastic Four 2.

Payne: [laughs] I am not at liberty to discuss the Puppet Master. It's a very crowded film as it is right now.

DRE: Did you reread Fantastic Four or is it all right there in your mind?

Payne: It's been with me for a long time, since childhood. Some of my earliest memories were from the Fantastic Four cartoons, way back when.

DRE: The one where they just basically took the panels and panned the camera over them.

Payne: Yeah, though I did buy Essential Fantastic Fours and Essential Silver Surfer just to refresh my memories about things.

DRE: What's your favorite run of Fantastic Four?

Payne: I was really big into them in the 70's with Marv Wolfman, George Perez and Len Wein. I'm really into all the Ultimate stuff right now too. I think that's cool.

DRE: Do you have a superhero that you really want to do a screenplay for?

Payne: All the Marvel stuff. I love Captain America, I love the Avengers, Spiderman, Incredible Hulk.

DRE: Those are all taken. What about something that's not taken?

Payne: Well they're not taken until they're up on the screen. I know they have Hawkeye. He's a cool character. They've been trying to do a Black Panther thing out there also. Dr. Strange is still out there, that's cool.

DRE: Are you still doing stuff with the movie?

Payne: I'm on the tail end. I believe they just wrapped first unit stuff this past weekend and they still have got another week of second unit stuff. I'm sure they'll go back and do re-shoots or pickups or whatever in the spring once they take a look at everything put together, as is the norm with every single movie I've ever heard of. But up until now, I've been doing little tweaks. [Fantastic Four director] Tim [Story] would email me from the set saying "Hey could you change this line" and I'd pitch him a few alternates. We'll see what happens over the next few months but I have my eye on other things I want to do. I have other spec scripts I want to write and then if they don't sell, I'd certainly be pursuing assignments and things like that. I'd love to work with Marvel again. Every time a writer gets attached to The Avengers or The Incredible Hulk, I call up [President of Production for Marvel Studios] Kevin Feige and go "What's going on man? You gave away Avengers. I could have done that. You gave away Captain America. I could have done that."

 

[Sinister]

On a sort of related note, I wonder if they will do a spin off for Silver Surfer? After all, they have talked about doing an actual film on him. This might be the perfect vehicle to get it off the ground.

Also, **** the Puppet Master. I never really liked him. I would much rather see what they could do with the whole Kree/Skrull War angle and introduce Super Skrull into the equation. He's a VERY formidable villain, especially since he has all the powers of the Fantastic Four augmented.

But I really keep hoping against hope that one of these films one day will have my favorite arch-fiend of all-time: THANOS!

 

[Johnny Thunder]

Indeed. Puppet Master and The Mole Man are the least of my interests - along with the Impossible Man.

I would like to see Annihulus done in an interesting way. Hell, for that matter, bring on Namor to woo Sue and take on the FF

 

[Sinister]

Wouldn't mind seeing Annhilus either. Interesting about Namor too, I remember sometime back they were supposed to do a flick about him too with Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson in the titular role. Can you see it?

Johnson is almost the prince's spitting image. It would be perfect casting with the character's ego to boot!

 

[Johnny Thunder]

Agreed there, Sin. I also would cast him as DC's Black Adam who has become one of my fav characters the past few years under Geoff Johns' writing. I know I'm veering off topic with this but.........

 

[Johnny Thunder]

Here's an update with the link:

January 17, 2007: Screenwriter Don Payne talked with Comics2Film recently about story points for the superhero sequel due in cinemas in June. He confirms Galactus, the gigantic planet eating being with the wacky purple helmet, will appear but will be explored of more as a 'force' rather than a character. Storywise much of it is based on the 'Coming of Galactus' and 'Ultimate Extinction' storylines as well as elements from four issues where the Silver Surfer encounters Dr. Doom. Set one year after events in the first film, the team "will have had encounters with a few supervillains in that time period" and are now dealing with other issues. "Reed and Sue are dealing with being celebrities and superheroes and also trying to have a private life. Reed is struggling to retain his status as a respected scientist while also doing the superhero thing" says Payne. He also adds that "I wouldn't say the Surfer is in a love triangle with Sue and Reed, but there's definitely a connection between Sue and the Surfer". As for the return of Doctor Doom? "In the story, [Doom's] got a very personal interest in the Silver Surfer and obviously a grudge against the FF. I think people will be happy in the direction he's going in." Finally the scribe confirms that rather than embracing the more realistic approach to superheroes that Batman, Superman and the X-Men have done in recent years, 'Four' will continue to push even further into sci-fi/fantasy. - Thanks to 'DarkHorizons' for the news!

http://www.efavata.com/CBM/

 

[Sinister]

What about Sue and the Namor connection? They did have a thing for each other sometime back. Doom needs to get more brutal this time around as I didn't buy him as a villain that much in the first movie.