Welcome back yet again for an all-new epic edition of the best (and only) fan-casting column here at Geek Anything, Fan-Cast-It Four! In this column, we are going to list four of our absolute favorite film and television casting ideas for some of our favorite characters from all across popular culture! It doesn’t matter if you recognize the names or faces or not. We just want to come up with some fun ideas for who to cast in the iconic roles from throughout popular culture. We realize it has been a little while since our last entry in this series, but we found ourselves between a rock and a hard place putting together this edition of Fan-Cast-It Four, which will be focusing on a stone-cold fan-favorite character that would be a heavy-hitting addition to the Marvel Cinematic Universe, Ben Grimm, who is much better known as The Thing!
At the end of last year, Disney made the official announcement that The Fantastic Four will finally be joining the Marvel Cinematic Universe in their very own film. As Marvel‘s First Family, it is an exciting prospect to see these iconic characters finally joining the rest of the MCU Marvel lineup to bring home a real sense of family and completion. Marvel fans have been begging for the Fantastic Four to join the MCU for years and have been excitedly awaiting their arrival ever since Disney was able to reacquire the film rights to the characters with the purchase of 20th Century Fox.
Since we now officially know that an MCU Fantastic Four movie is coming, the bigger question jumps over to “who will be playing them“? In recent editions of Fan-Cast-It Four, we covered who our top choices are for the roles of Reed Richards (aka Mr. Fantastic), Sue Storm (aka The Invisible Woman), and Johnny Storm (aka The Human Torch). We are now excited to round out the team with the Fantastic Four‘s heaviest hitter, The Thing!
The Thing is named such because what other name would really apply? He was a normal pilot that got turned into a lumbering rock monster after being exposed to cosmic radiation with the rest of the crew of his ship; a crew that eventually became The Fantastic Four. He has super strength and durability, so he can endure just about anything that the universe can throw at him. As his skin is made of organic rock, he is also largely impenetrable and indestructible.
Ben is an especially tricky role to cast because while most people would immediately jump to someone big and muscular, Ben’s strength isn’t just from his size. Ben has heart and lots of it. Sometimes referred to as “The Ever-Loving-Blue-Eyed Thing,” Ben is absolutely the soul of The Fantastic Four team. Whoever is stepping into his rather large orange rocky feet needs to be able to deliver that performance on screen. Ben Grimm can be a grouch when he wants to be, but deep down he is feeling wounded and ashamed of what he has become. He can put up his barriers with a gruff demeanor, but Ben Grimm is a huge softy until you make him mad!
One of the key elements of Ben’s character is his Jewish faith, so we wanted to make sure we specifically stuck to actors who were themselves Jewish to keep things kosher (no pun intended). We also factored in heavily that while we will see Ben on-screen, once he transitions into The Thing, he will likely be a CGI character, so we wanted to find someone with the right voice for the role. Ben Grimm has previously been portrayed in live-action by Michael Bailey Smith (1994), Michael Chiklis (2005-2007), and Jamie Bell (2015).
In no specific order at all, here are our favorite casting suggestions for Ben Grimm in the Marvel Cinematic Universe!
Liev Schreiber
If we had our choice today, right now, it would absolutely be Liev Schreiber stepping into the role of Ben Grimm. This veteran actor has been around for quite some time and has a phenomenally nuanced balance between funny and serious that would work perfectly for a character like The Thing. His voice is deep enough to feel natural coming out of a large walking pile of rocks. Schreiber would likely bring a strong vocal performance to a largely CG character. Yes, we have seen Schreiber in a Marvel film before back in 2009’s X-Men origins: Wolverine, but that was part of the now-defunct Fox X-Men franchise, so it is high time that he gets his chance at a do-over.
The one thing we see working against him is that he isn’t exactly a spring chicken at 53 years of age. Marvel will likely want to go with someone a bit younger so that the Fantastic Four could carry on for quite some time before they start having to worry about actors walking away from the franchise. If Schreiber is already in his early fifties, he is already in line with several aging Marvel stars that are preparing for their exits.
Seth Rogen
What a perfect role to bring Seth Rogen into the Marvel Cinematic Universe! Even looking past the fact that Rogen himself is a huge comic book fan, what character would possibly be a better fit than The Thing? Tell me you can’t already hear Seth Rogen’s distinctly gravelly voice shouting a rallying cry of “IT’S CLOBBERING TIME!” into battle?
While the majority of Rogen’s acting projects have been comedies, the star has plenty of range and could easily provide the right performance to bring Ben Grimm to life in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Ben is rough around the edges but is absolutely a big softie once you get to know him. An actor like Seth Rogen could have just the right spark to convey that.
Jake Johnson
Many people know and love him from his role as Nick Miller on The New Girl (2011-2018), but Marvel fans already know and love Jake Johnson as the voice of Peter B. Parker from Spider-Man: Into The Spider-Verse. While he has previously lent his voice to a major Marvel character, it wasn’t part of the MCU and he could easily slide into a role like Ben Grimm. Johnson is physically a bit smaller than some of our other suggestions, but once he becomes The Thing, that shouldn’t make too big of a difference.
Jake Johnson is a bit tricky because he tends to be typecast as a smart-aleck slacker, but we know there is a winning performance in him just waiting to come out. We can definitely see Johnson slipping into Ben’s spacesuit as the dependable best friend of Reed Richards as they fly off into space and dealing with the horrifying transformation that sees him mutated into a massive rock monster. The Thing could be Johnson’s magnum opus and we would love to see it.
Jack Black
We honestly don’t have a lengthy explanation on this one. Just think about it for a few minutes. Go on. Take a moment to process the idea of “Jack Black is The Thing” and let that roll around. Got it? No? Okay well just imagine Black yelling out “ITS CLOBBERING TIME!” as he busts through a wall! We don’t even need to see him decked out in orange rocks! We can clearly see this visual happening in our heads.
On a serious note, Jack Black is a seriously underrated actor who has provided top-tier performances time and time again, but as he also loves to work on raunchy comedy projects, he is often viewed as a bit low-brow. Black himself even parodied this logic in Tropic Thunder, where he played an actor who took on many similar roles. At the end of the day, Black has what it takes to be a Marvel superstar and we can’t think of a single role better suited for him than that of The Ever-Loving-Blue-Eyed Thing.
Honorable Mentions
David Harbour
Okay, so we lied earlier, and if we could cast the role right now it would absolutely be David Harbour (sorry Liev!). Unfortunately, even if we were in that position, Harbour has already joined the Marvel Cinematic Universe in the role of Red Guardian in the often-delated-but-hopefully-actually-releasing-soon Black Widow (2021). So, he is officially off the table and can’t join The Fantastic Four.
Shia Labeouf
We love Shia, and he would be a bonkers choice for this role (we mean that in the best possible way). But Labeouf has made quite a name for himself as a bit of a pariah in the entertainment industry. As someone who frequently surrounds themselves in controversy, it seems unlikely that Disney (Marvel’s parent company) will want to reunite with Labeouf after all these years for a tentpole project like this.
We also took to social media including Facebook and Twitter and asked our readers who they would cast as Ben Grimm and got some great answers! We have included the list below excluding anyone that was already mentioned above. Other people that fans want to see in the role of The Thing include:
- Jon Stewart
- Dominic Purcell
- Dean Norris
- Dave Bautista (yes really)
- Brian Cage
- Bill Goldberg
- John Cena
- Sam Worthington
- Terry Crews
- Jason Sudekis
- David Denman
Who would YOU cast as Ben Grimm for the Marvel Cinematic Universe? What do you think of our suggestions? Be sure to let us know in the comments below and stick around Geek Anything for more Fan-Cast-It Four!
