The MCU's original plans for the Silver Surfer and Galactus.

For those who don't know, back in 2012 it was famously rumored that Marvel Studios had reached out to Fox, as their film rights to Daredevil were set to expire, with a deal: The film rights to Galactus and the Silver Surfer (plus any associated characters obv) in exchange for an extension on DD's film rights. Fox took offense to the offer and the rights to Daredevil reverted back to Marvel a year later after Fox failed to get Joe Carnahan's pitch for the character off the ground in time.

If Fox had accepted the extension deal, I think we probably would've gotten a Silver Surfer movie in phase 3 instead of a Captain Marvel one.

The Surfer was famously a major player in the Infinity Gauntlet storyline, which Marvel had likely committed to adapting at that point, so they probably wanted him around for that.

Marvel would also have had the entire original Defenders roster on the board for a movie/trilogy down the line (which would give them a place to develop Hulk and Namor as characters without having to deal with Universal or figure out how to staple them on to another unrelated character's solo project).

Eventually Daredevil would get a really mediocre or bad Disney Plus series. However, he'd at least get a pretty fire Joe Carnahan movie (or possibly trilogy) in this timeline so he really wins either way.

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Commentaires

Careful_Big_5462025-12-12 07:20

Easily could’ve used Adam Warlock in his place and didn’t so I don’t see why they would’ve been planning anything so big for the surfer besides his popularity but other way less popular characters got used so I feel like they were avoiding these roles from the start. It was more of an avengers movie than a thanos one. If they wanted more Starlin they could’ve done it without silver surfer and decided not to

ContentAssumption2042025-12-12 07:31

I don't think they wanted him solely as a nod to the Infinity Gauntlet comic. It'd be a cool bonus, but there is potential for a movie/trilogy with this character that directors have been trying to capitalize on for decades. He's easily the most popular of the F4 spin-off franchises, with Black Panther as a close second (pre-movie obviously) and the Inhumans as a very distant third.

Also, Infinity War arguably **was** a Thanos movie.

Careful_Big_5462025-12-12 07:37

Yeah I shouldn’t have worded it like that it is a Thanos story just not a Starlin one and that’s where Silver Surfer comes into his story in my mind and they avoided nearly every other Starlin detail besides Gamora some parts of Nebula and the Infinity Gems. You’re not wrong either that he could’ve held his own in a movie without FF. But if they wanted that they needed to focus on Thanos much earlier than they did. He got one decent cameo before his movie and a few end credits scenes. If they wanted to go that route they needed to have him built up like Voldemort as a constant threat and presence that finally takes over everything. Instead it’s just all avengers until it’s all Thanos in one movie. They took too long to get to him to but maybe having SS earlier would’ve allowed them to do that and make it more like Starlins comics. Idk. Interesting take I love the “what ifs” that movies and franchises might have been if things went differently this would’ve been cool to see if it worked out

Ragnarok_6192025-12-12 09:31

Who the hell is starlin? And why aren't you using punctuations, my man

a_o2025-12-12 10:10

Jim Starlin, creator of Thanos

Careful_Big_5462025-12-12 14:12

Couldn’t sleep it was like 1 am I very rarely comment I things like this and it was a lot my bad. Didn’t know we needed perfect grammar on Reddit lol. And it’s the creator of Thanos maybe pick up a marvel comic book sometime bud they’re more than just movies lol

Ragnarok_6192025-12-12 15:04

You don't need perfection, but atleast you require a minimum decency to make your writing legible.

BaronZhiro2025-12-12 08:28

The thing is though, he’d just been done in the FF movie and hadn’t sparked any ardor commercially, so it’s hard to imagine anyone bending over backward for him around then.

Mind you, I’d love to have seen the original Defenders done right. I actually re-read all those just a couple of years ago.

Theasiuser992025-12-12 13:15

OMG the third picture with the classic Defenders team. I NEED IT. It's such a badass squad Dr. Strange, Namor, Hulk and Silver Surfer.

Kingpin12322025-12-12 13:53

On one had it’d have been good to have the Fantastic Four, Galactus and Silver Surfer earlier in the MCU. On the other hand it’d mean we wouldn’t have gotten Daredevil. It was a necessary sacrifice to keep the Fantastic Four with Fox at the time.

ContentAssumption2042025-12-12 15:28

The deal to extend DD’s rights didn’t include the Fantastic Four, just Galactus and the Surfer (plus any associated characters like Shalla Bal, Dawn Greenwood, the other heralds, etc.).

PumpThoseNumbers2025-12-12 13:57

I think what’s worth remembering is Marvel probably expected that Fox would somehow deliver on more Daredevil and wouldn’t allow the rights to expire, in which case why not try and get something for nothing? Fox were not going to say yes to giving up the F4, but they might’ve said yes to Silver Surfer etc. If they ended up with the rights to him, they could figure out how to use him later. You could totally imagine an Avengers sequel with Galactus as the villain with Silver Surfer instead of Ultron.

I’m sure given the choice between getting Daredevjl back, and getting the Silver Surfer, Marvel were thrilled with how that played out. I’m still kind of amazed Fox didn’t push through some poorly thought out Daredevil reboot film within that last year to reset the clock. Sony ALWAYS has a Spider-Man film in development.

OkInvestment22442025-12-12 14:21

I doubt we would have gotten Galactus in Ultron's place for the simple fact that Joss Whedon was very veeery excited about doing Ultron.

PumpThoseNumbers2025-12-12 14:29

Maybe, maybe he appears in GOTG. Or maybe Whedon likes the idea once they’re in the toy box. The point being that if the rights came around, they would find a use for them. I don’t think marvel were putting any serious consideration into characters they didn’t have the rights to.

OkInvestment22442025-12-12 14:33

Yeah, no doubt. GotG kind of replaced the FF's role as the cosmic explorers in the MCU.

ContentAssumption2042025-12-12 15:44

I’m pretty sure Feige knew Fox wouldn’t be able to get DD into production at that point. They had no script and were a year away from the deadline. Marvel were more than willing to use DD as a bargaining chip for characters they actually wanted/had plans for like the Silver Surfer (which is ironic considering how successful DD turned out to be).

Once the DD rights inevitably returned, they had no idea what to do with the character and tossed him to Marvel TV.

CombatPanoo2025-12-13 02:39

>Once the DD rights inevitably returned, they had no idea what to do with the character and tossed him to Marvel TV.

Which in turn, led to the greatest comic book tv adaptation and an absolutely fantastic shared TV universe of 4 amazing characters and their shows. So, I'm glad things went the way they did.

NorrinRaddicalness2025-12-12 14:12

I think all the interviews with Fiege, the Russos, the writers, James Gunn, etc - make it very clear there was never a plan.

During the filming of The Avengers, Wheedon and all the cast crew and writers were referring to the tesseract as “the cosmic cube” - meaning it wasn’t even an infinity stone. Thanos was a last minute addition to the film.

So no, in 2012 they were not “committed to the Infinity Gauntlet”

ContentAssumption2042025-12-12 16:01

The Avengers was shot in 2011 though. In August of 2012, Marvel were preparing to shoot Thor the Dark World, which featured the first named infinity stone.

Even though the Aether wasn’t originally intended to be an Infinity Stone until reshoots, earlier that summer the studio had announced GOTG at Comic Con, a movie which starred the two daughters of the character they had introduced in the post credits scene of Avengers, and an Infinity Stone as the MacGuffin.

By 2012, they most likely had an idea of where they were going with things.

NorrinRaddicalness2025-12-12 23:54

Most of the stuff I’ve read about it suggests they didn’t commit to the bit until Thor 2. James Gun was asked to shoehorn the intro of the infinity stones into his film then change the color of his McGuffin from red to purple - late in post production - as the decision had been made the Aether in Thor 2 will be made an infinity stone and it was already red.

These people never had a plan during the infinity saga. Which is why it’s hilarious in Endgame they point out that somehow three of these incredibly rare cosmic artifacts are all not only on earth, but in the same city at the same time lol

Fiege learns from this mistake, sets out a master plan for the multiverse saga only to have Majors smash it into a billion pieces lol

BlargerJarger2025-12-12 14:15

We got just a few issues of Silver Surfer and Thanos and it was a tragedy because they were a great pairing.

deekaydubya2025-12-12 16:10

Damn that would’ve been better

Vegetable-Dog52812025-12-12 19:58

That first pic is from a SNES game?

dziggurat2025-12-13 23:41

NES. It's the death or game over screen, can't remember which off the top of my head.

MrFC10002025-12-12 23:12

What game was that first photo from? Looks like SNES era and looks familiar, but can’t place it

CaptainCharisma5122025-12-13 09:48

Gunn once said in a live video, I think Periscope, that if Marvel had the rights, he would have put Silver Surfer in a guardians movie

Bendythenightfury2025-12-14 06:44

That is fair- IS THAT MARINETTE?!?!