The Silver Surfer in the upcoming Fantastic Four sequel remains a character that I’m skeptical about seeing on screen. While the character has been given some amazing treatments through comic book artistry, I’m just not convinced the character will do well in a movie. There’s just too much potential for a disastrous outcome, ranging from something that looks like an unfinished animatic to something that winds up reflecting too much of its surroundings. Considering the man-in-suit treatment of The Thing in the first Fantastic Four, I’m almost afraid they might go that route for the Surfer like they did for Colossus in the last X-Men movie. What a disaster that would be.
Recently the news came out that the Surfer would not be a man-in-suit approach, but a full CG-creation. This is a move I think would be very wise. Recently it’s been rumored that Doug Jones (who performed the motion capture part of Abe Sapien in Hellboy) will be putting on the motion capture suit for Silver Surfer. According to AICN, those rumors are coming from Jones’s convention booker currently, with an expected confirmation of some sort to come at the upcoming ComicCon.
Abe Sapien didn’t have enough screen time in Hellboy for me to make a rational decision on this. I think the producers are going the right direction by making this a CG character, but will the character prove strong enough in the sequel to an already lackluster super-hero movie to carry his own expected film? If not, I certainly hope they are smart enough to pull the plug on the spin-off before Marvel winds up with another Elektra.
