Straczynski Talks Silver Surfer: It Probably Ain’t Gonna Happen
I like J Michael Straczynski. Seriously, it’s ridiculous, and borders on being a man crush. I saw every episode of the guy’s Babylon 5 TV show, despite the fact that my local area kept showing it in syndication at around 3:00 in the morning. Luckily, I was pulling down a second shift job at the time, and was always able to catch every new episode. So yes, while I’m happy that ol Mikey has gone on to write everything from Clint Eastwood’s “The Changeling” to the proposed “Silver Surfer” movie, the very idea of seeing more of the Fantastic Four “universe” leaves me, shall we say, shaking in my boots. By which I mean, I don’t think I can stomach another FF movie, much less a lesser spin-off. Can you imagine being lesser to the two “Fantastic Four” movies? The horror, the horror…
But hey, maybe J Michael Straczynski has a take on the Surfer that would improve upon his FF appearance. Of course, the first thing they need to do is get rid of Laurence Fishburne’s voice. Seriously, whoever came up with the idea of putting Morpheus’ voice in the Surfer needs to get tarred and feathered, and then run over with a car.
Here’s what The J-ster said to AMC’s Sci Fi Blog about his Silver Surfer script, and the possibility (not looking very good) of it ever getting made:
Q: Did your work on Silver Surfer: Requiem comic bring about the offer to write the Silver Surfer movie?
A: It was one of those weird synchronicities. Whether or not it ever gets made I don’t know because they were kind of disappointed in how Fantastic Four 2 did. And given how this will be a subset of FF2 in terms of the marketing strategy, I think there is hesitation there about putting it forward. The script is pretty good, I like it, but whether or not it goes into production, I have no idea.
Q: Does this pick up where Silver Surfer left off in Fantastic Four 2?
A: 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.
Q: When do you mean when you say,”We see Galactus”?
A: In the script I come up with some ways to visualize him that are true to the original, but take it one step further using the current CGI technology that we have. So we would have seen him as a character on numerous occasions in the second movie, not inconsistent with the first distant shot of him in that that’s just a way of concealing who and what he really is. Believe me, he would be not at all silly looking.
I’m sure Straczynski would have found a way to make Galactus believable, but does it matter? FF2 was Godawful, even by the lowly standards of comic book movie sequels. Straczynski should take the money they paid him for the Surfer script and try to get another Babylon 5 movie made. Now that’s something I’d pay to see.
omg, he's so cute. ilove them. 
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No, it wasn’t godawful and Babylon 5 is overrated
The only reason anybody saw FF2 was because of the Silver Surfer, so whatever money it made should be an indication of how many people would see The Silver Surfer movie. But as a big fan of the Surfer i would have to say that if they made a spin-off certain criteria needs to be fixed. 1) whoever decided that his power comes from his board should be shot, because SS does much of his battle off his board. 2) don’t even show the Fantastic Four, it would just make people cautious. If you’re making this movie you have to emphasize that it’s not a FF movie and that his character flaws from FF2 were fixed. It’s the kind of movie that would have to be a summer B flick and get good reviews by critics and word of mouth. Just like how the new Hulk movie is doing it now (and what a shocker, it’s #1 in the box-office!). If you make a Marvel Movie, people will see it. Case Point: Daredevil or Elektra.
“If you make a Marvel Movie, people will see it. Case Point: Daredevil or Elektra.”
Actually, no, people did NOT see Elektra. Daredevil was a decent-sized hit, despite all the hate that people claim to have for it (it certainly wasn’t a bomb by any standards, having grossed over 100 million), but Elektra still didn’t do even a quarter of the business. It was probably Marvel’s biggest miss since they got serious about making movies a decade ago. Punisher and Blade 3 may have had disappointing returns, and as much as people say they didn’t like the FF movies, there is just NO comparison to Elektra.
FF2 godawful?
Nope…it wasn’t fantastic (sorry) but it was a decent enough flick.
I can’t believe anyone would refer to the greatest Sci-fi series of all time as over-rated…have you actually watched it?
Now Battlestar and Stargate…those are over-rated.
Surfer is on my list of absolute LEAST favorite Marvel characters of all time…but I would be pretty enthusiastic if Marvel somehow wrangled the rights to do it themselves…especially with Strazinski on board.
My point was, even though Daredevil sucked, Elektra still made money while it was out there (i think $25M total). The fact that it sucked too is why it didn’t make more. But you take that number of people who saw elektra, and increase it by good reviews/word of mouth and you’ll have a movie that makes descent money. My comparison was to the spin-off, not to how much money was made. My point for making money is the new Hulk movie. Good reviews made it Number 1 at the box office. Good word of mouth will drive it further. People are more forgiving than critics, which is why if you can win them over then you’ll win the crowd over. My prediction is a good reviewed SS movie will make over $60 M. But that means the movie will have to fix the flaws they presented in FF2 and distance itself from that movie altogether.