Scripter Payne Talks
Fantastic Four 2 Wednesday, 17 May 2006
The Simpsons scribe Don Payne is set to see his feature-length screenwriting debut,
My Super Ex-Girlfriend, bow later this summer, and it came at a price. “Unfortunately animated shows don’t really have a hiatus, so I had to write it on my nights and weekends,” he recently told
Now Playing magazine. “I was actually able to do it pretty quickly - I just had to ignore my responsibilities as a husband and father, which I’m sure I’ll pay for when I’m divorced and my kids are in therapy.”
There are few projects for which Payne would gladly jump through those same hoops, but the sequel to last year’s
Fantastic Four is one of them, so he might want to consider putting a therapist on retainer. With director Tim Story back on board, Payne has been tabbed to tackle a script (after Mark Frost, a writer on the first film, also took a pass at the continued adventures of the quartet).
“I’ve been reading Fantastic Four comics since I was a kid,” says Payne, “and I’m intimately familiar with the characters and their history - as are so many other fans out there. So I know their voices because I grew up with them, and it’s just a thrill to be able to put words in their mouths.”
Having already riffed on and re-contextualized superhero conventions for
My Super Ex-Girlfriend, Payne thinks he can jump back into more overt action territory with
Fantastic Four 2, but he still sees the franchise’s appeal in its familial roots. “If I were to leak anything to you about the story, it would be clobberin’ time for me,” says Payne, who wouldn’t confirm or deny for us rumors that the Silver Surfer shows up in his version of the script. “But I think the Fantastic Four are actually like the Simpsons in a lot of ways - they’re a uniquely dysfunctional, squabbling family who, at the end of the day, has a real love for one another.”
As long as Sue Storm doesn’t start rocking a blue beehive ’do and The Thing doesn’t develop a beer gut…
http://www.nowplayingmag.com/content/view/3763/2/
At least he's a fan of the comic, but wasn't Frost also ?
So that sounds like a pretty firm confirmation that he is the scriptwriter (but without the Surfer confirmation).
