Oppenheimer star campaigned HARD to play The Thing in new Fantastic Four

The Santa Clause and Oppenheimer star David Krumholtz was desperate to land the role of Ben Grimm in Marvel's new Fantastic Four.

There have been two attempts to kick off a successful Fantastic Four franchise, first in 2005 and then in 2015 with a new group of actors. Neither were critically well received, while 2015's version of the Fantastic Four was a box office bomb.

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Rumours started a couple of years ago that Marvel were planning on bringing the characters into the MCU for the first time, and they have finally found their stars to bring the First Family to life.

Pedro Pascal, Vanessa Kirby, Joseph Quinn and Ebon Moss-Bachrach have been cast as Reed Richards, Sue Storm, Johnny Storm and Ben Grimm respectively.

Krumholtz met director Matt Shakman about playing The Thing.

“I only met him on the strength of a Twitter post or an Instagram post that I then took down two hours after I posted it,” Krumholtz explained to Entertainment Weekly.

“I was embarrassed. My post said, ‘I just want to be in the conversation.’ And it was a picture of the Thing, and Matt saw it somehow. And I had a meeting with him and we discussed it. And I’ve never been so bold in a meeting before, just begging for the role, just straight up selling the shit out of it, the idea of how committed and passionate I was for it. But obviously that didn’t happen.”

Krumholtz wants to play Moleman in Fantastic Four

Krumholtz is a self-confessed Marvel nerd and is desperate to be involved in the MCU in any capacity, and has put his name in the hat for Fantastic Four villain Mole Man.

“It’s not a joke at all,” he insisted.

“I mean, it’s a shoe-in for Mole Man, isn’t it? But I don’t know. I’ll do anything Marvel tells me to. I’ll probably end up playing like a superhero’s therapist. Let’s face it. There’s slim pickings for guys like me in that world, unfortunately.

"I’m old and I’m not in any kind of acceptable shape. So we’ll see how that works out, if it works out at all.”