The Thing Prequel Character Breakdown Illuminates Plot, Seems to Fully Kill Big Rumor About the Film

Posted on Wednesday, January 13th, 2010 by Russ Fischer

Despite the fact that John Carpenter’s The Thing is a remake of/sequel to/alternate take on The Thing From Another World, notions of remaking it get fans up in arms. With good reason. Carpenter’s movie has a fantastic cast and some of the best practical latex effects seen in any film, period. It’s tense and fun and doesn’t sag after repeated viewings.

But Strike Entertainment and Universal are planning to shoot a remake in March, directed by Matthijs Van Heijningen based on a script from Eric Heisserer. There have been many rumors about what we’d see in this film, and how directly it would relate to John Carpenter’s movie. A new casting breakdown seems to kill one of the big rumors, that the film would feature the brother of R.J. MacReady, played by Kurt Russell in Carpenter’s film. It reinforces that this is a prequel to Carpenter’s movie, as it takes place in the Norwegian camp that is destroyed before the beginning of his story. Most striking is that this prequel will have…women. Wild, right? Read More »

Screenwriter Talks Ideas For Prequel to The Thing

Posted on Friday, August 7th, 2009 by Russ Fischer

The forthcoming prequel/remake of John Carpenter’s The Thing, one of the best sci-fi horror pictures to come out of the ’80s, has caused no small amount of consternation. Ronald D. Moore (Battlestar Galactica) wrote a script which is currently being rewritten by Eric Heisserer, who also worked on a rewrite of the upcoming A Nightmare on Elm Street reboot. We haven’t known much about Moore and Heisserer’s approach to the story. Bloody Disgusting got a few comments about the approach and how Heisserer is ‘reverse engineering’ the story of the doomed Norwegian camp that dug up the shape-shifting alien that eventually battled Kurt Russell & Co. Read More »