‘The Thing’ Prequel to begin filming in March

I am not huge into horror movies, but I can remember seeing The Thing as a kid and is scared the s*@& out of me. Maybe it was because I was a kid, or maybe it was just a scary movie. Word is, director Matthijs Van Hejningen begins filming this March on a prequel.

Collider.com gives us the information:

For those who don’t remember, the 1982 film began with a Norwegian helicopter trying to kill a runaway dog only to have its pilot and passenger killed in the confusion. While The Thing eventually makes it clear why they were trying to kill the dog, Moore’s script focused on what led up to that helicopter chase. It’s unclear how much Heisserer changed and what they’re going for tonally with this prequel. I do hope the tagline for the prequel will be, “Okay, so it turns out there’s actually a warmer place to hide than man.”

Comment with Facebook

19 thoughts on “‘The Thing’ Prequel to begin filming in March

  1. I would really hate for there to be a direct sequel to Carpenter’s movie. One of the greatest things about the Carpenter film was the ending. You were left wondering who if either of the men the creature had possessed. I would hate to see that resolved. Unless they can find a way to carrying on the story and leave the mystery of the original in tact, I’m thinking they should leave it alone. I thought I read somewhere that Carpenter came out a few years ago saying that he had a written a follow up to his original that would carry on the story of the two survivors. It was said that he felt he could even explain the age differences in MacReady and Childs if Kurt Russell and Keith David reprised their roles. That might have been interesting.

  2. John Carpenter’s The Thing was one of the Great SF movies of that decade, however I can’t see how a prequel would be of any interest.

    We actually saw what happened at the Norwegian base, same thing (no pun intended) that happened at the American base, they stopped trusting each other, paranoia, fear. Suicide was something that only happened at the Norwegian base.

    I think only a sequel might work but if it was done properly then it wouldn’t, you’d just have a dark ending. If one of the frozen American’s (Kurt Russell or Keith David) was a “Thing”, if it thawed out the first thing (that word keeps coming up doesn’t it!) it would do is try to imitate someone else and vanish as it likes to hide. So ultimately it wouldn’t be a good film as you really end up with the same outcome as Invasion of The Body Snatchers. The “Thing” just moves around in secret silently copying every person on Earth till everyone was a “Thing”.

  3. A sequel would have been better than a prequel. That could have used the story from the PS2 game,which actually does justice to the great Carpenter film and the original novella

  4. I’m in shock that this is even a green light. I’ll give it ONE possible plus to the prequel. Just one.

    First, let’s look at the problems of the prequel even before it is filmed.

    As noted, the obvious: the guys from Swede Norway. Okay, maybe one of them can speak English because they know there is an American research base near them, and the idea is that they may need an interpreter. But in a base full of non-speaking Americans, why speak English? Unless everyone but one guy speaks english. (The guy who shoots at the Dog-Thing in the beginning of the 82 film.)

    But we have a bigger problem. We know that everyone at that Norwegian base is dead aside from two guys who die when the reach the US base. We also know how they died more or less. It was more mysterious and shocking to imagine what transpired. Why is there this desire to show this and explain it? Why bother?

    Now, I noted there is ONE strength. I’ll start with the obvious. It’s set in the early 80’s and you still have isolation. You still would have a group of people not knowing who to trust, etc etc. I stress the 80’s part of it, because that means no Blackberries, old computers, VHS tapes, and so on. Hopefully that might also mean keeping most “things” old school and not all CG.

    Still, I don’t have high hopes for this, although I might cut it slack if there is one Norwegian we don’t know about that survived and answers the call from Windows, only to find the American camp just as decimated as the Norwegian one.

    We find a frostbitten MacReady and Childs, both near death. Who to trust? If they are both dead, is the Thing also there, waiting to be unthawed?

    Not that any of that will go down.

  5. If any of you ever have the time and inclination. I highly recommend watching the 1951 version “The Thing from Another World” and Carpenter’s remake back to back. Two very different movies based on the same novella. I believe that Carpenter’s version is considered more faithful to original, but the beginning of the 1951 movie is almost spot in with the original novella. Watching them back to back is a cool way to spend a Saturday afternoon.

  6. The original still holds up fine on it’s own.

    they could of easily ripped of some aspects of this film and spun into a Venom flick like some of the comics had..

    Remember watching in theatres and then going to a mexican resturant and NOT eating my wet burrito cause of it..

  7. Huh. Well I love the original. For me I put it up there with the first 2 Alien movies, in terms of awesome Sci-Fi horror.

    But I think it’s kind of weird that they’d make a prequel. I mean sure the set up is kind of there already in the original movie, but they can just as easily make 1 or more of the aliens come back to earth years later and make it a sequel instead. Reminds me of the whole old Star Wars vs. New Star Wars thing. A prequel kind of just feels like they’re pushing it, digging for something to make a movie out of.

    Oh well, I’m just going to be glad they’re finally making another Thing movie period after all these years. It’ll be awesome to see the creatures, how they kill, “absorb” and transform with todays effects, if anything.

    But the men hunting down the “dog” at the beginning of the old movie were Norwegian. Does that mean the new movie is going to have Norwegian speaking actors threw the whole thing with sub titles, or just have them speak English and pretend they’re speaking Norwegian? ;P

      1. Amen Matt.

        That is exactly what I was thinking while getting over my initial elation of the news of another “The Thing” movie. I hold the original high up in my overal favorite movies and would love to see a sequel or prequel. However, it will completely be lost on me if the effects are cg. The practical effects of the original were unparalled at the time and still stand out as very tangible and credible even on high def formats.

        To do it in CG would pretty much make it like any number of imitators that have followed in the years after the original.

        I will keep the faith. However, the other example of a movie makers that kept to the whole “keeping the costumes/effects real” was Aliens Vs Predator. Unfortunately that movie was fairly weak even though I give props for them using nearly 99% real, ah, props.

        We shall see.

    1. I think I would enjoy a sequel more. Perhaps with an eventual rescue party happening upon the frozen remains of both guys from the ending. Now they could be “dead” so to speak and just frozen. So they could be thawed, you know, for a family funeral. Except we, the audience, knows a little more about the fear that perhaps one or both is not entirely “dead”.

      Of course alien comes out, panic ensues, many people you slightly care about die, and the protagonist stops the infection with a nuclear bomb, you know, “because it’s the only way to be sure.”

      Seriously though, bringing the frozen remains could be a great option because it allows the sequel to be in any time period after the first. They could be found 5 years later, 20 years later, etc… And the story could go anywhere from there.

      As it stands, a prequel would be pretty much … predictable.

Leave a Reply