Even though Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer didn’t exactly clean up at the box office, it made enough that Fox still seems to feel good about going ahead with a spinoff movie starring the titular Surfer. Though the character worked pretty well in the context of FF2, my interest in the project has been pretty much zero… until now.
There’s a rumor going around that Dark City director Alex Proyas may be in the running to direct Silver Surfer for Fox. Proyas would be brilliant for Surfer, he might actually make the property relevant and hiring him would signify that Fox plans to take Surfer in a completely different direction from the light, popcorny fluff of the Fantastic Four movies. Plus, Proyas has a relationship with Fox. He directed I, Robot for them, and made it good even though all the odds and Will Smith were utterly stacked against him. The guy has proven he knows how to make a big budget blockbuster work without totally nixing the smart, edgy, sci-fi style that makes him so great in the first place. Surfer feels like the right place for him to shine.
One problem though: the rumor is very shaky. It got started on MSN in a story on superhero movies being produced in Australia. In it, Marvel head Avi Arad hints that he’s trying to hire an Australian director for one of their movies. Well, Proyas is an Australian and Surfer is one of Marvel’s movies, but that’s hardly a story. Somehow though, MSN makes it one by adding the following after Avi’s hint: “He declined to say the director's name, but there has been speculation Australian director Alex Proyas was being wooed to direct the film adaptation of another Arad project, Silver Surfer.”
There have been rumors? What rumors? This is the first I’ve heard of them. As far as I know the rumors got started when MSN said rumors, which may be sort of a double negative, but there it is. Maybe the know something we don’t. When last heard from a couple of weeks ago, Proyas was planning to shoot a rather boring sounding movie about the origins of Dracula… because we just haven’t had enough movies about that. I’d much rather have him shooting Surfer, but right now there doesn’t seem to be much substance to MSN’s claims that he’s involved in it.
