The Thing Prequel

[Emperor]

Pre-production is slated to kick off in March on Universal Pictures' prequel to John Carpenter's 1982 cult classic "The Thing" reports Production Weekly.

 

The story will deal with the initial dredging up out of the ice of the shape-shifting alien life form by researchers at a Norwegian Antarctic facility.

 

Matthijs Van Hejningen helms the new film from a script by Ronald D. Moore and Eric Heisserer. Shooting runs from March till June in Toronto.

 

 

[Krakalakachkn]

interesting.  The Thing is on my list of movies to see.  I've heard it's great.

[Emperor]

The original is.  I mean today the graphics are almost laughable but at the time they were awesome.  And that movie was REALLY scary when I was a kid.  I can not say that about most movies these days.

[Emperor]

Infobits about director Matthijs Van Heijningen's prequel to John Carpenter's THE THING (HERE) are starting to leak out. The project, which looks like it'll roll in March, will use a script by Eric Heisserer - who himself reworked a script by BATTLESTAR GALACTICA's Ronald D. Moore.

 

As it's a prequel, this means the film will probably be crawling with crazy Swedes (err, Norwegians) - as Carpenter's 1982 movie established that a Norwegian science team in the Antarctic was the first to unearth that nasty-ass space beastie. Despite said Norwegians, the main character in this installment appears to be an American(?) woman named Kate Lloyd. There's also helicopter pilot - a character named Sam Carter - who appears to be something of a counterpart to Kurt Russell's R.J. MacReady character from Carpenter's film.

 

 

[Krakalakachkn]

 

 

Mary Elizabeth Winstead ("Final Destination 3D," "Scott Pilgrim") and Joel Edgerton ("The Square," "Star Wars: Episode II") are tipped to be the lead stars of Universal's upcoming prequel/remake of "The Thing" reports Heat Vision.

 

The project marks the third adaptation of a 1938 short story. Howard Hawks directed the first version, 1951's "The Thing From Another World", but the most well-known is the John Carpenter-directed 1982 horror feature "The Thing" starring Kurt Russell.

 

This incarnation appears to essentially serve as a prequel of sorts to Carpenter's film. Winstead will play an American student working on her Ph.D. at a Norwegian research facility in Antarctica. The scientists onboard discover an alien ship frozen in the ice and unwittingly release a deadly shape-shifting organism that picks them off.

 

Edgerton plays a mercenary helicopter pilot whom the student enlists to help stop the creature from escaping to the outside world where it would multiply and destroy all life on Earth.

 

Ronald D. Moore and Eric Heisserer penned the script which Matthijs Van Heijningen is directing. Marc Abraham and Eric Newman are producing. Filming kicks off March 15th in Toronto.

[Krakalakachkn]

New Details

 

Joel Edgerton previously confirmed that the upcoming "The Thing" project at Universal Pictures is a prequel to John Carpenter's 1982 original.

 

Now the Aussie actor has gone into more details over at ShockTillYouDrop.com, saying "Well, it's a prequel and definitely the Norwegian base is modeled on the base you see in the Carpenter film. Being a prequel you'll see a lot of tie-ins as to how the base comes to be the way it is in the Carpenter film, being so destroyed, and that evidence you see in the Carpenter film, We'll get a glimpse into that."

 

He adds that much of the reason for those close ties to the original are producers Eric Newman and Marc Abraham along with director Matthijs van Heijningen who "have such respect for the original film that they're not trying to do a remake, they're just trying to pay homage to the original and also do the right thing with what I think is a real cool way in to doing that, and revisiting the material."

 

Filming began a week ago in Toronto.

 

 

[Krakalakachkn]

Mary Elizabeth Winstead is scared. She’s standing inside an Arctic bunker wearing a heavy winter coat and looking at something on the ground. The scene is being shot with two cameras. One is focused on Winstead, and the other is a wide shot which includes more of the surroundings. For at least eight seconds we see Winstead reacting to whatever is on the floor, and after awhile, she decides to turn on what’s in her hand and strapped to her back. I guess now would be a good time to mention she’s wielding a flamethrower!

 

But let me back up a second.

 

As I type these words I’m on a plane flying back to Los Angeles from Toronto. It’s June 8th, 2010 and I spent yesterday on the set of director Mattthijs Van Heijninger’s prequel to John Carpenter’s The Thing. While I was neither for or against the prequel before I arrived on set, I can tell you with certainty the set visit sold me on not only the film, but the cast and the filmmakers. It was a great set visit which I’ll share in more detail after the jump:

 

 

Since many of you might not have seen John Carpenter’s The Thing, I strongly suggest renting/buying the movie. You can read a recap of the film here.

 

The most important thing to know about that movie is that it begins with a Norwegian helicopter landing at an American research base in the Antarctic. One of the passengers is not what it seems. The rest of the movie is the station dealing with a life form that has invaded their home as they try and survive.

 

While Carpenter’s movie starts with that helicopter, the prequel is about what made that helicopter land there in the first place. Even though some purists might have a hard time accepting Universal messing around with a classic film, everything the filmmakers and cast told me yesterday sounded like they had a handle on the material, and they all spoke with a reverential tone when mentioning Carpenter’s movie. None of them want to make a movie that fucks up The Thing’s legacy.

 

I guess the first thing that sold me that this could be a very cool movie was the team isn’t trying to make a hardcore action film that loses character development. They are not making a film with tons of fast cuts and good looking people screaming and yelling. Instead, the filmmakers have cast people that look the part so they can make a movie that will stand alongside Carpenter’s film. For the Norwegians characters, they cast some of the best actors from Norway. They all grew facial hair. They are all treating the film as a serious piece of art.

 

Also, rather than having everyone speak English, the Norwegians are going to have subtitles in at least a few scenes. The crew wants to make a film that takes place in the same reality as Carpenter’s: a place where the people on screen are real and the way they react to an alien entity is the same way you’d react if you were there in their situation.

 

Since the film has to have some English-speaking parts, the story calls for some experts from around the world to help with the investigation with something found in the ice. That’s why Winstead’s character is there. But the reason Joel Edgerton and Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje are there is because their characters move goods around the arctic. That’s how they make their living. When the alien ship is found in the ice, they’re involved to help move things with their equipment. It was probably a bad decision.

 

Ultimately, if everything cuts together the way they hope, you should be able to watch both “Things” back to back and feel like they belong together.

 

The Thing Prequel Synopsis

 

Before getting to the actual set visit, since Universal hasn’t yet released a trailer, I think you should read the actual synopsis for the prequel:

 

Antarctica: an extraordinary continent of awesome beauty. It is also home to an isolated outpost where a discovery full of scientific possibility becomes a mission of survival when an alien is unearthed by a crew of international scientists. The shape-shifting creature, accidentally unleashed at this marooned colony, has the ability to turn itself into a perfect replica of any living being. It can look just like you or me, but inside, it remains inhuman. In the thriller The Thing, paranoia spreads like an epidemic among a group of researchers as they’re infected, one by one, by a mystery from another planet.

 

Paleontologist Kate Lloyd (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) has traveled to the desolate region for the expedition of her lifetime. Joining a Norwegian scientific team that has stumbled across an extraterrestrial ship buried in the ice, she discovers an organism that seems to have died in the crash eons ago. But it is about to wake up.

 

When a simple experiment frees the alien from its frozen prison, Kate must join the crew’s pilot, Carter (Joel Edgerton), to keep it from killing them off one at a time. And in this vast, intense land, a parasite that can mimic anything it touches will pit human against human as it tries to survive and flourish.

 

The Set Visit

 

While some set visits start at 7am and you’re there until 8 at night, for The Thing, we got started at 11:45am. It was a nice change of pace.

 

Also, unlike some set visits that have up to 12 people, Universal had a small group of 6 including me, so it made for an intimate setting as we moved from set to set. It wasn’t like a herd of elephants trampling the forest.

 

When we arrived at Pinewood Toronto Studios, we were told they were filming in the “Megastage”. While I first sort of laughed at the name, they really weren’t kidding around as the production had built tons of individual parts of the Arctic station and each one felt real and lived in. Also, between each room was plenty of space for key members of the production to work and keep everything clear and organized.

 

The first thing I saw as we approached was that they were filming a massive helicopter without the blades on top. They told us the almost life-size chopper was brought in on a crane.

 

Next to the chopper was a dead body for practical special effects work. The body’s head appeared to be lifelike (it was freaky) and the bottom had about 20 wires coming out of it and they were attached to four controller decks so people could animated the body for the scene. I don’t know what happens in the film to this body, I just know it’s going to look awesome when they pretend to kill whoever this was.

 

Shortly after taking in the surroundings, we walked a short distance and all sat down in chairs labeled “The Thing.” We were in the crew area where the director, producers and key personal were working and we had two small monitors in front of us so we could watch what was being shot.

 

Unfortunately, the scene being filmed was a MAJOR spoiler, so I can’t tell you what we saw. However, I will say the scene had most of the main cast (Winstead, Edgerton, Akinnuoye-Agbaje) and it was towards the end of the movie after the shit has hit the fan. Also, the scene ends with Mary Elizabeth Winstead using a real flamethrower and the entire room ends up on fire. It was all kinds of awesome to watch being filmed.

 

 

 

As we sat there watching filming for an hour or two, we conducted interviews with the producers, director, and learned a lot more about the film. Since the production was going to use the Toronto soundstages for a lot of the production, when they shot on location, they went near the locations where they shot the original film for a few days of exteriors. It should make everything a lot more believable.

 

Also, something I thought was awesome was director Matthijs van Heijningen telling us he was shooting The Thing with anamorphic widescreen lenses and trying to shoot as much practically as possible. Of course CGI is going to be used (as it should be to amplify the scenes), but it is always great to hear the word “practical” on any movie set. Also, van Heijningen kept saying how much he loved Ridley Scott’s Alien and Carpenter’s Thing, and he wants to make a movie like that. It was like music to my ears.

[Krakalakachkn]

Dark Horse Comics has created an exclusive digital comic to serve as a prequel to the upcoming thriller remake "The Thing" opening October 14th.

 

Starting this week, the comic will be released in three eight-page installments on September 21, September 28 and October 5 and is available FREE online at DigitalDarkHorse.com and via the free Dark Horse Comics mobile app.

 

 

"The Thing: The Northman Nightmare" tells the origin story which is set in a frigid Greenland and introduces us to a group of Norsemen who find themselves caught in a game of survival when they discover a terrifying creature.

 

The shape-shifting monster has the ability to turn itself into a perfect replica of any living being. It can look just like you or me, but inside, it remains inhuman. And it hides somewhere in a desolate village with few human survivors, among them a strange group of women.

 

Steve Niles ("30 Days of Night") wrote the comic while Patric Reynolds ("Serenity") did the art and Dave Stewart ("Hellboy") the colors.

 

 

 

 

Sounds baller.