I've been out of the news loop for a while, sticking mainly to box office coverage and otherwise planning my wedding and honeymoon. Now that I'm back on the beat I'm finding I missed a few things, like the rumor that Vin Diesel was being considered to play the Silver Surfer in the next Fantastic Four movie.

Apparently Mr. Diesel mysteriously left his current project Black Water Transit for "undisclosed reasons". Mix that with the rumors that he's up to play the shiny hero and the folks at Movie Hole decided to go straight to the source. No, not Vin, but Fantastic Four 2's director, Tim Story.

“No truth to it”, reports Story, “The Surfer will be a new CGI design being developed especially for the movie".

An all CGI character. How original. Then again, how else are you going to create an alien whose reconstructed body looks like gleaming molten silver? No word on who Tim is casting to do the Surfer's motion and voice. Is Robert Patrick busy? He looked pretty good as CGI silver in Terminator 2.

Fantastic Four and the Silver Surfer cruise into theaters next summer.