Variety is reporting that Australian-born actor Julian McMahon 'will go from playing a master of plastic surgery to Dr. Doom, a villain who truly needs some.'  McMahon, who stars in Nip/Tuck as Dr. Christian Troy, also played Phoebe's demon lover in Charmed.  Now he gets a chance to portray the arch-villain Dr. Doom in the Twentieth Century Fox film of the Fantastic Four, which will begin shooting later this month in Vancouver and is currently scheduled for release on July 1, 2005.  McMahon will star opposite Michael Chiklis (The Thing aka Ben Grimm), Jessica Alba (the Invisible Woman aka Sue Richards, see 'Jessica Alba To Star in Fantastic Four'), Ioan Gruffeld (Mr. Fantastic aka Reed Richards), and Chris Evans (the Human Torch aka Johnny Storm).

Tim Story will be directing the FF film from a script by Simon Kinberg.  Marvel is hoping that the Fantastic Four property, which was cruelly treated in a low-budget, campy film produced by Roger Corman in 1994, will be able to join its 'A' list of top props that now includes Spider-Man, X-Men and maybe the Incredible Hulk.