'The Thing' Prequel Shooting This Spring

It's been a long time since we've heard anything definitive about the prequel to The Thing, which began its life as the 1951 sci-fi flick The Thing from Another World but is best known as the John Carpenter movie with Kurt Russell from the early 1980s. Because of the '51 vintage, The Thing is always in the conversation about the best remakes ever. Anyway, we knew Ronald D. Moore from Battlestar Galactica was writing the film, but his script was then being rewritten by Eric Heisserer (the upcoming Nightmare on Elm Street redo). Last March, Moore said, "The idea was to make a companion piece to Carpenter's. So we didn't try to sort of completely reinvent what it was. We wanted a movie that would sort of live alongside it." So we'll see if that direction has changed at all in version 2.0. Production Weekly indicates that the film will begin shooting in Toronto this March, and will be in production about three months. Universal has assigned commercial directing veteran Mattijs Van Heijningen, who also has a long history producing in the Netherlands. Obviously, I think a lot of us might prefer a director with a better track record in this genre, but it's such an out-of-the-blue pick that Van Heijningen might be the absolute right guy. Now, if it's shooting this spring and into early summer, that probably means it won't hit theaters for another nine months to a year. Depending on how The Wolfman does for da U next month, could we see this in the same time frame next year, or does the studio have enough faith to put it in summer?

Comments

[common]

The Thing actually holds up pretty well.

[Get The Big Picture]

Very, very well. Better than almost any other sci-fi or horror movie from that era, except the ones we always introduce into movie conversations (Star Wars, Alien, Close Encounters).

[Orinn]

The thing holds up so well I almost pruchased the game they made for as soon as I rewatched it (ITS ON HULU.com) I showed a friend who had never seen it. Just dont try to eat dinner while watching it.