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Surf away!!

Silver Surfer May Enter ‘Fantastic’ Sequel
For years, comic fans have clamored to see the Silver Surfer on the big screen, but is this they way they wanted it to happen?
It’s being reported in Variety that the funny book cult favorite has a featured role in one of two possible scripts for the upcoming “Fantastic Four” sequel.
The trade paper reports that 20th Century Fox and Marvel are choosing between a script by Mark Frost (“X-Men 2”) and a second script by Don Payne (“My Super Ex-Girlfriend”). The film, which will be directed by Tim Story, has a July 4, 2007 release date already staked out, so production can’t be far away. The Payne script, the script with the Silver Surfer, is rumored to be in the lead.
Not to imply that Variety would ever run a studio-planted story or anything, but if Fox is still determining which script to go with, the little blurb in the trade seems very much like a tentative feeler out into the fan community. Given the decidedly mixed reaction in that community to the first “Fantastic Four,” the studio may not want to risk jeopardizing a Silver Surfer feature if the fans are negatively predisposed to the character being reduced to a supporting role in a franchise that’s already generated ire.
The Silver Surfer is no stranger to playing second banana to the Fantastic Four, of course. The character was introduced in “Fantastic Four, Vol. 1 No. 48,” which may suggest that the studio is trying to mirror the character’s comic launch for his theatrical debut.
Budget concerns have always hampered a possible Surfer film. Silver Surfer is the tortured herald of Galactus, a cosmic being that travels the universe devouring worlds. He looks like a nude, silver-skinned man, and he flies around the universe on a silver surfboard. That doesn’t come cheap.
Stay tuned, we guess, for additional details.