James Gunn Almost Developed a SILVER SURFER Movie

When Guardians of the Galaxy director James Gunn first came to Hollywood, one of the first gigs he was offered was the opportunity to write the script for a standalone Silver Surfer film. He revealed this bit of trivia about himself on Facebook, and said that he even wrote a story treatment that sounded awesome. Here's his explanation of how it all went down:

Little known fact: When I first moved to LA in 1999, one of the first people I met on a meeting was an exec at Fox. He told me they wanted to make a Silver Surfer movie, and I might be right for that, so I wrote an extensive treatment. It was a huge story, cosmic as hell, and featured the Silver Surfer turning on Galactus (but no Fantastic Four - this was before the first FF film). At the same time, I was approached by director Jay Roach and his producer Shauna Robertson about writing a live-action Spy Vs. Spy film. That film seemed more likely to get made, and I loved Jay and Shauna, so I took that gig instead. It was my first studio film job. Of course, in eventuality, neither movie ever got made. But people liked the Spy Vs. Spy script, so I got a lot of work because of it. That said, I sometimes wonder what it would have been like had I truly jumped into the cosmic Marvel pool 16 years ago. Instead, I shall satisfy myself reading the great work of Dan Slott and Mike Allred every month!

I would have loved to see Gunn develop this Silver Surfer movie, especially after seeing what he did with Guardians of the Galaxy. Who knows, maybe if he would have worked on it the movie would have actually been made. The comic book movies being made at that time though weren't very good, so in the long run it was probably the better decision to take on Spy Vs. Spy over Silver Surfer. I loved Spy Vs. Spy, and it's a shame that it never happened either.

Silver Surfer eventually made his feature film debut in 2007’s Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer. He was physically portrayed by Doug Jones and voiced by Laurence Fishburne. Unfortunately, the movie wasn't really that good. I'm sure Gunn would have done a much better job. 

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