The rumours have been flying for over a week now that Laurence Fishburne would be joining Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer in some capacity, with most of the buzz suggesting that the ex-Morpheus would be voicing Galactus, planet-eater extraordinaire and mega-dude from before time. Well, not quite. Instead, Fishburne has actually signed on to voice Galactus' herald Norrin Radd, aka the Silver Surfer.
The Surfer, aka El Shine-o Board-o around these parts, arrives on Earth and finds himself in contact with the Fantastic Four - Reed Richards, aka Mr Fantastic (Ioan Gruffudd); Sue Storm, aka Sue Richards, aka the Invisible Girl (Jessica Alba); Johnny Storm, aka the Human Torch (Chris Evans - no, not that one) and Ben Grimm, aka The Thing (Michael Chiklis). Tim Story, aka the director of the first film and, er, the American remake of Taxi, is back again for this one. (And the record for most uses of "aka" in a news story goes to...this one!)
The Silver Surfer has been played by Doug Jones on set, who provides the body reference for the entirely-CG creation, but clearly they wanted a voice that knows kung fu for the role, which sadly means that once again, as in Hellboy, Jones won't get to voice his character.
Still, if you're looking for a cool dude from another planet, you could do a heck of a lot worse than Fishburne. Although it would have been fun to get Paul Walker or Keanu Reeves in to provide an authentic surfer dude drawl.
It also means that it's hard to imagine getting anyone with a stronger, more authoritative role for Radd's boss, Galactus, and sure enough Variety reports that, "the studio hasn't decided whether Galactus will even speak". Seems a bit late in the day not to have made up their minds, but this does add credence to the rumours that Galactus won't appear in physical form (a gigantic dude in purple armour) but as some sort of storm or other inchoate shape. But only time will tell - the film opens internationally on June 15, so keep watching the skies until then.