One rumour that has been making its way around the Internet in recent weeks is this one about Vin Diesel possibly playing The Silver Surfer in “The Fantastic Four 2”. I’m sure you’ve all heard it. And the rumour mill went [further] into overdrive last week, when it was announced that Diesel had left his new film “Black Water Transit” – for undisclosed reasons.

That rumour? Not true. It is on the fast track to the recycle bin. Wham. Bam. Boom. No xXx fighting alongside the troops in blue, I’m sorry to say. Whatever reason Diesel left “Transit”, has nothing to do with “FF2”.

The film’s director, Tim Story, told me this morning that although The Silver Surfer is indeed in the movie, it won’t be Vin Diesel playing him.

“No truth to it”, Story said, when asked about the Diesel rumours. “The Surfer will be a new CGI design being developed especially for the movie. It's going to be incredible”.

The Silver Surfer is a galaxy-cruising defender endowed with superhuman strength, who is able to control and direct cosmic energies, with enough force to destroy a city.

Initially, he was going to front his own picture (and probably will, sometime in the future), but the studio have decided to team him up with “The Fantastic Four” for his first movie out of the gate.

Twentieth Century Fox tells Superhero Hype! That the “Fantastic Four” sequel will not be called “Fantastic Four and the Silver Surfer”, as previously mooted.

The new title?

The slightly slicker, “Fantastic Four: Rise of The Silver Surfer”.

Not bad.

TV favourite Andre Braugher (“Homicide”) is digging into FOX’s “Fantastic Four” seconds.

The actor, who will quit a role on TVs "E.R" to film his role in the movie, will play a military general in “Fantastic Four : Rise of the Silver Surfer”, says BlackFilm.com.

The sequel sees our heroes in blue learn that they aren't the only super-powered beings in the universe when they square off against the power Silver Surfer and the planet-eating Galactus.

“Hellboy” star Doug Jones is playing the CGI character, The Silver Surfer, alongside returning cast members Julian McMahon, Ioan Gruffudd, Jessica Alba, Michael Chiklis and Chris Evans.

For the past couple of months, the unofficial word was that Doug "Abe Sapien" Jones would be playing the Silver Surfer in the "What?... Okay"-named FANTASTIC FOUR: RISE OF THE SILVER SURFER and the assumption was that he would be playing him by providing a movement performance for motion capture. Now that word can become official and that assumption a confidently-spoken fact because, according to The Hollywood Reporter, Jones is indeed on the project and his performance will indeed be captured and overseen by none other than Weta. It will be done through the CG method a la Gollum but with reportedly state-of-the-art updates that will "add further dimensionality to the liquid-metal hero." Vocal casting is said to be undetermined still, which means that, most likely, Jones' own voice will be Sapien-ly absent from the film. Luckily, the guy can actually be heard (in Spanish) as Pan in PAN'S LABYRINTH this Christmas. The FANTASTIC FOUR sequel opens July 15th, 2007.

Two new Fantastic Four: Rise of The Silver Surfer behind-the-scenes photos of what looks to be Doug Jones in a green suit for The Silver Surfer have leaked online here! It appears he is doing motion capture for the character that will most likely be CGI.

Longtime JoBlo reader "Nick" sent in the pics below, which reportedly feature Doug Jones in his green screen Silver Surfer suit, filming tests for FANTASTIC FOUR: THE RISE OF THE SILVER SURFER. Weta Digital is creating the look for Surfer based off the motions of Jones who is using that giant rig to "surf." I had heard that one of the big sequences in the movie is a Human Torch/Silver Surfer chase through Manhattan that goes through the Lincoln Tunnel. I don't know about you, but I might pay just to see that alone. It'll be great to see what the CGI Surfer will look like but I imagine it'll be some time before Fox is ready to reveal that to the scrutinizing fans out there. Check out the shots below!

With computer-generated imagery techniques similar to those used to create Gollum in The Lord of the Rings, the slippery Surfer, voiced by Doug Jones, "will look somewhere between gun metal and fluid metallics so you can see the body motion, the breathing, the muscle tone, the mood," says Marvel Studios CEO Avi Arad.

The Surfer's mood is key to the story. After striking a deal with the evil Galactus to save his planet, the once-human Surfer wreaks havoc throughout the cosmos. "He is a highly emotional being, trapped inside fluid metal," Arad says.

At the recent press day for Columbia Pictures' new psychological thriller Premonition, Julian McMahon talked about what Dr. Doom will look like in Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer.

CS/SHH!: Can you talk about the classic look of Dr. Doom?
Julian McMahon: The classic look of Doom, well, it's weird, man, because first of all, you start with Dr. Doom has been in a casket for a couple of years and wakes up a few years later, whatever. And he's pretty pissed off, kind of just rips off his mask and all that kind of stuff. He gets very ugly. And then he's got his lair set up in some castle in Latveria, right? We're talking comic book stuff so you have to kind of go with all this kind of stuff. With all these monitors and stuff, I don't know where he got 'em all from but they're pretty cool. He sees this kind of entity which is the Silver Surfer. Just knowing the comic books, Dr. Doom is Dr. Doom so what does he do? He goes and he tries to destroy everybody and get everybody's powers and all that kind of stuff. That's basically what the character's about. But then Dr. Doom becomes me for a certain period of time which I think is very strange but let's not get into that. And then the final costume is this pretty amazing costume. It's a similar kind of mask. It's kind of a larger type of fit and probably a little more sturdy kind of look to it. The chest plate, it's a very heavy outfit. It weighed about 45 -50 pounds whatever without the cape and stuff but its pretty extraordinary. It's a darker suit than the one he had last time its kind of more Batmanesque in a way, but with the mask its obviously very Dr. Doom, and it's a great looking outfit and he's got like a…..God, I can't remember. Look, I got so many outfits its ridiculous. [laughs]CS/SHH!: They still give you a lot to do with Dr. Doom?
McMahon: Yeah I had quite a lot to do actually, because he went through all these transformations, you know, different to what happens in the comic or the cartoon but we kinda just had to make it applicable for some reason, I don't know.

CS/SHH!: Have you always been a fan of comic books?
McMahon: I have, yeah. Fantastic Four in particularly, yeah

CS/SHH!:What did you like about it?
McMahon: I don't know, I think maybe I just liked the fact that there were four people with different types of powers. But I was a big fan of other stuff too. I was a big fan of Batman and Spider-Man and Superman but Fantastic Four, in particular, I got into it actually with the cartoons. We used to watch the cartoons every morning, and I don't know maybe its team work, and I don't know it was just good.

Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer opens in theaters on June 15.

Laurence Fishburne is The Silver Surfer
Date : April 19, 2007 Posted By : Clint Morris

Laurence Fishburne, an actor with one of the most recognizable voices in Hollywood, will voice the character of ‘The Silver Surfer’ in FOX’s “Fantastic Four and the Silver Surfer”.

A couple of other sites had previously erroneously reported that Fishburne (“The Matrix”) was supplying the voice of ‘Galactus’ but the studio hasn't decided whether Galactus will even speak. Silver Surfer, who rides his surfboard through space, is the herald for the planet-destroying Galactus.

Apple.com has posted the final full-length trailer for the highly-anticipated Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer in glorious QuickTime formats, including High Definition and iPod Video. You can choose from the formats by clicking on the links below:

Hi-Def
Hi-Res
iPod Video

And how can you make a movie boring when it only lasts 88 minutes