Screenwriter Don Payne said the film was based on 'The Galactus Trilogy' as well as comic issues 57–60 where Doom steals the Surfer's power, and also drew inspiration from the Ultimate Marvel limited series Ultimate Extinction.

As of March 2007, Galactus' design was not yet finalized, and until Laurence Fishburne was hired to voice the Silver Surfer in April 2007, filmmakers were unsure whether the character would even speak.

Doug Jones physically portrayed the Silver Surfer but was dubbed over by Laurence Fishburne, reportedly without initially knowing about it; along with Hellboy, this remains one of only two films where Jones has been dubbed over in English.

The role of General Hager was originally written as Nick Fury, but was changed because using Nick Fury would have required Fox to purchase the rights and Marvel refused to license the character; some of Hager's lines were originally written for Nick Fury in Ultimate Extinction.

The Silver Surfer was created by combining Doug Jones' performance with a grey-silver suit designed by Jose Fernandez and built by VFX shop Spectral Motion, later enhanced with a new CGI system designed by Weta Workshop.

Michael Chiklis' prosthetics as The Thing were redesigned for the sequel to allow him to remove the suit between takes and for better ventilation.

During the filming of an emotional scene, director Tim Story asked Jessica Alba to 'cry pretty' because her real crying looked too painful, telling her they could add CGI tears instead.

20th Century Fox partnered with the Franklin Mint to alter 40,000 U.S. quarters featuring the Silver Surfer and a promotional URL, which the U.S. Mint later flagged as illegal use of government currency for private advertising.