‘Vice’ Director Adam McKay Is Interested in a ‘Silver Surfer’ Movie

From the microverse … to the cosmos?

Ant-Man co-writer Adam McKay has another Marvel character he’d like to tackle: Silver Surfer. He shared his wish during an episode of MTV’s Happy Sad Confused podcast with Josh Horowitz while promoting his new Dick Cheney film Vice.

“Silver Surfer is the one I want to do, man. I would do anything to do Silver Surfer because, visually, you could do what the Wachowskis did with Speed Racer with the Silver Surfer,” McKay said. “At the same time, there’s a great emotional story in there, man, where Norrin Radd [Silver Surfer] has to make the choice to save his planet. That would be the one, but I think Fox owns the rights … .”

When Horowitz informed McKay that Marvel’s Fox-licensed characters would soon be on the table for the Marvel Cinematic Universe following Disney’s impending acquisition of 21st Century Fox, McKay noted, “Alright, I’ll call [Fox Film chief] Emma Watts; I’ll call [Marvel Studios head] Kevin Feige. I think you’ve just created the Silver Surfer movie. I think after Dick Cheney and economic collapse, maybe I need a little break.”

The Silver Surfer first appeared on the big screen in 2007’s Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer and was created by Jack Kirby in 1966.

McKay also discussed how he joined Ant-Man. Back in May 2014. McKay was in talks to replace Edgar Wright as director on the film, only to abruptly pass. Instead, McKay opted to co-write the final version of the script with Ant-Man star Paul Rudd. He said he passed on directing because of his friendship with Wright.

McKay praised working with Feige, relaying an anecdote about Feige’s response to McKay’s pitch for what eventually became Ant-Man’s duel between Ant-Man and Falcon/Sam Wilson (Anthony Mackie) at the Avengers’ facility in upstate New York.

“I was like, ‘Kevin, I wrote this crazy thing; you probably won’t want to do it.’ And he was like, ‘Well, let me read it.’ And he read it and was like, ‘That’s awesome. We’re doing it.’ He just had that sense about him,” McKay said. “Yeah, what a fun world over there; I would definitely go back there and work. That was a career highlight. And then I got a big, giant Ant-Man poster signed by Stan Lee out of it. So, basically…the end.”

Listen to McKay’s full episode on Horowitz’s Happy Sad Confused podcast here.

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