The list of failures from previous FF adaptations that The Fantastic Four: First Steps must fix is longer than Reed Richards can stretch, but something earlier iterations of the franchise have actually already nailed is The Thing. No, not the uncanny nudist rock monster played by Jamie Bell in 2015’s Fant4stic, but Michael Chiklis’s beautifully practical Ben Grimm from the mid-aughts movies.
While some fans might’ve wished Marvel would’ve gone the old-fashioned route with the character again in 2025, star Ebon Moss-Bachrach has already confirmed that his version will be realized with CGI. We know all too well how a comic book film relying too much on VFX can go wrong, but thankfully Moss-Bachrach’s latest revelation about the celebrity helping hand he received in bringing The Thing to life suggests we’re in for something special this summer.
Which Lord of the Rings icon helped bring The Thing to life in The Fantastic Four?
While speaking on Jimmy Kimmel Live, Moss-Bachrach revealed that he had a mentor when it came to mastering the art of MoCap, and it seems he learned from the best. A certain MCU veteran and Middle-earth mainstay apparently gave the actor some much-needed pointers, which bodes well for his upcoming performance as Ben Grimm.
“Andy Serkis, who’s sort of the godfather of motion capture, he’s got this company called The Imaginarium, which is at Pinewood Studio where we shot Fantastic Four, and he was very generous,” Moss-Bachrach told Kimmel, confirming that The Hobbit alum taught him the ropes.
Andy Serkis is, of course, no stranger to the Marvel multiverse himself, having starred as Ulysses Klaue in both Avengers: Age of Ultron and Black Panther and, more recently, playing Knull in Venom: The Last Dance (the sequel to Venom: Let There Be Carnage, which he directed). And let’s not forget he’s Alfred in DC’s The Batman films. Is Serkis trying to chomp his way through every superhero franchise like he’s Galactus?
Although this has only made us more intrigued to see the finished form of The Thing, it sounds like we’re still a ways off Ben Grimm in all his clobberin’ glory being unveiled just yet. In the same interview, Moss-Bachrach was quizzed on whether he has seen what he’ll look like when transformed into full Thing mode. Understandably, post-production on the movie — which is on track for an impressively, but also kind of worryingly, fast turnaround — is still ongoing so The Bear vet admitted he has yet to see the final rendering.
“I’ve seen a very crude rendering as it takes a while to build this stuff,” he stated. “They have so many animators working on this. I wear these motion capture suits, two cameras right here so they’re capturing absolutely everything, every nuance, every expression, every thought in my eye.”
With shooting only starting last July, just 12 months ahead of its theatrical release, Marvel hasn’t left itself long to polish First Steps to perfection, so we would hate for its effects to end up looking like the unholy lovechild of Quantumania and Kraven the Hunter. With Serkis sharing the tricks of the trade with Moss-Bachrach, and the actor confirming the VFX team are hard at work and taking their time over it, hopefully The Fantastic Four will dazzle us come July 25. If not, well, I guess we’ll have to wait for the next reboot in 10 years’ time.