Adam McKay is one of the few guys who could conceivably take over Guardians of the Galaxy from James Gunn, who was fired from the franchise he turned into a juggernaut after old, offensive tweets he had posted were brought back to light. McKay has done action comedies (The Other Guys), loves Marvel (he co-wrote Ant-Man), and has just the kind of sarcastic, quirky humor that works for those characters. If he was interested, it would make a lot of sense.

McKay, who’s out promoting his new Dick Cheney movie Vice, told the Happy Sad Confused podcast, that he has “talked a little bit” with Marvel and producer Kevin Feige about doing Guardians Vol. 3. But he didn’t sound too committed to that idea.

McKay did say, however, that he “grew up on Marvel” and “really enjoyed working with Marvel and Feige on Ant-Man and would like to work with them again. He confessed that the first Marvel character he fell in love with was Nova (back when he was “in fourth or fifth grade”) and said that Marvel is “kicking around a Nova idea.” So that’s a possibility. But the dream Marvel project for McKay is one that would have been impossible until recently ... Silver Surfer. In his words:

I would do anything to do Silver Surfer because visually ... you could do what the Wachowskis did with Speed Racer with Silver Surfer, yet at the same time there’s a great emotional story in there, where the guy has to make the choice to save his planet. Norrin Radd has to save his planet — that would be the one.

The rights to Silver Surfer were held by Fox as part of their deal to make Fantastic Four movies — the Surfer was a major character in the second FF movie, Rise of the Silver Surfer. But now Disney and Fox are merging, and the rights owned by Fox will be coming back to Marvel. Which means this dream project is not as unlikely as it might first sound.

Vice opens in theaters on Christmas Day. After that, let Adam McKay make Silver Surfer (or Nova, that sounds good too).