Before microtransactions and battle passes, there was the quarter. Arcade cabinets ruled malls, pizza joints, boardwalks, and movie theatre lobbies throughout the 1980s and 1990s. Bright marquees, attract screens, and booming speakers were engineered to pull you in, while ruthless difficulty curves were designed to keep the coins flowing. These games were cultural landmarks, competitive battlegrounds, and financial black holes for an entire generation. Here are the arcade legends that drained our allowances one continue screen at a time.
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Elvis director Baz Luhrmann was once a big fan of the Silver Surfer, revealing that he came close to making a solo movie featuring the Marvel character back in the ’90s.
On the Happy Sad Confused podcast recently, Luhrmann told host Josh Horowitz that he also “very stupidly” turned the first Spider-Man and Harry Potter films, adding that he “would be a very wealthy person” if he’d decided to helm those movies instead of choosing projects like Romeo + Juliet and Moulin Rouge!.
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“My brand is about taking stuff that people think is cheesy or forgotten or even new works, but primary stuff,” Luhrmann mused. “I need to prove it to be relevant and new and fresh and of the moment. I’m not quite sure why, but it is [my] brand.”
Still, the Aussie director was tempted by the offer of making a Silver Surfer movie following the release of his successful debut feature film, Strictly Ballroom. “Way back in the day, I just thought, oh, I love Silver Surfer so much. Before Marvel was so big, you know, this was really early. And the guy who owned Marvel sent me all those Silver Surfer toys and books, and I went like, hmm, philosophical, surfer in space, you know. But alas, no, I did Romeo + Juliet instead. It worked out for everybody.”
Astronomer Norrin Radd was originally created by Jack Kirby for Marvel in 1966, when Radd saved his homeworld by agreeing to become a herald for the planet-devourer Galactus and was imbued with immense power. He also got a new silver body and a surfboard that allowed him to travel faster than the speed of light, becoming the Silver Surfer.
The Radd version of Silver Surfer has appeared in a clutch of Marvel TV shows and movies over the years, including in Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer, where he was portrayed by Doug Jones and voiced by Laurence Fishburne. 2025’s The Fantastic Four First Steps featured the Shalla-Bal incarnation of the Silver Surfer, played by Julia Garner.
A standalone Silver Surfer movie has so far eluded Marvel, but 1998’s Silver Surfer: The Animated Series did a grand job of telling Norrin Radd’s tragic tale.
The post Baz Luhrmann Nearly Made a Silver Surfer Movie appeared first on Den of Geek.
