While the Marvel Cinematic Universe has proven that superhero movies can be wildly successful and help shape pop culture, it wasn’t always this way. Back in 1979, a movie based on the Fantastic Four comics was almost made, but fell through due to funding. And from the few details we can glean from the project, it sounds like it would have been kind of awesome.
Lee Kramer, the producer of Xanadu, had a vision for a cosmic rock opera based on the story of the Silver Surfer —and he wanted bodybuilder Frank Zane, three-time Mr. Olympia winner, to play the iconic character. All that remains from the long-abandoned project is a single piece of concept art (see below) and a test proof poster showing Frank Zane in character.
“The photo on the poster is of Frank Zane who was in pre-production starring as the Silver Surfer,” the description reads. “With his body painted silver and holding titled such as Mr. America, Mr. World and countless others he was poised to play a great Silver Surfer.” (Want the poster? It’ll set you back $1,350.)
The rights to all other Fantastic Four characters had reverted to Marvel a few years earlier, and so Kramer suggested that Stan Lee and Jack Kirby write a standalone graphic novel entitled The Silver Surfer, which could then be adapted.
“We’re going to make an epic picture on the scope of 2001: A Space Odyssey with the kind of soundtrack that that film had, only using contemporary rock and roll,” Kramer said, according to Sean Howe, author of Marvel Comics: The Untold Story. “It’s even conceivable that the Surfer might have a chant or a fanfare made up of one thousand electric guitar[s]. Doing the Silver Surfer has always been a dream of mine, and now it’s going to be realized.” Kramer reached out to none other than Paul McCartney to write the music for the film, and according to a letter from McCartney’s management, the Beatle was very interested.
The plot of this movie would have followed Zane’s Surfer as he betrays his master, Galactus, and travels to Earth, where he sees that humanity has the potential to help him defeat the planet-devouring villain. Galactus then tries to lure the Surfer back to him by creating a golden female counterpart for him, named Ardina. This character was created especially by Stan Lee to be played by Kramer’s then-girlfriend, actress and singer Olivia Newton-John, one of whose best-known hits, ‘Physical’, almost made it into the movie:
“Lee Kramer was managing a bodybuilder named Frank Zane who was Mr. World,” recalls Olivia Newton-John in her book Don’t Stop Believin’. “Lee had heard the song ‘Physical’ in its early stages and thought it would be perfect for an upcoming Silver Surfer movie, based on the comic, that he had optioned for Frank to star in. Lee told me about the song and then casually asked, ‘Maybe you could sing it?'”
While the movie never got made, Newton-John did end up releasing ‘Physical’ as a single, so we have Kramer and Zane to thank for the definitive workout anthem of the Eighties.
The movie would have ended with Ardina dying at the hands of Galactus, and the Silver Surfer sacrificing himself in order to save the people of Earth — but presumably not before he’d sung one last final heart-wrenching ballad. Would Zane have performed his own vocals? We’ll never know.
Zane’s fellow Mr. Oympia title-holder, Arnold Schwarzenegger, eventually proved that you can make a successful transition from prize-winning bodybuilder to internationally renowned movie star, and so there must be days when Zane wonders what might have been. Not that Zane’s career hasn’t been stellar: he is considered one of history’s greatest bodybuilders, achieved 24 titles, and has authored 12 books on fitness, nutrition and mindfulness.
Audiences eventually got to see the Silver Surfer on the silver screen in the 2007 Fantastic Four sequel, Rise of the Silver Surfer. This time around, the Surfer was a CGI character voiced by Laurence Fishburne, and portrayed by Doug Jones, the long-limbed actor known for playing otherworldly creatures in Pan’s Labyrinth and The Shape of Water — in other words, a distinctly different physical representation of the character than Zane’s hulking frame.
Those Fantastic Four movies aren’t particularly fondly remembered, although they did show Marvel the kind of untapped leading man potential Chris Evans had. And in retrospect, they were at least more colorful and closely related to the comics than the gritty, painfully boring reboot we got in 2015.
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