Universal Officially Announces ‘The Thing’ From New Caprica

Posted by Rob Hunter (rob@filmschoolrejects.com) on January 29, 2009

John Carpenter's The Thing

This isn’t necessarily new news, but it does move recent rumors into the realm of official announcement.  Universal has hired Ronald Moore to write the big-budget “remake/re-imagining/prequel” of John Carpenter’s The Thing.  They’ve also hired on Matthijs Van Heijningen to direct.  Variety confirms the film will take place in the Norwegian camp that first discovered, housed, and was destroyed by the shape-shifting bastard from the nether regions of space.

This info has been floating around as rumor for a while, but now that it’s official the same comments, questions, and issues remain.  The best part of the announcement (the only good part actually) is the involvement of Moore.  The man has shown his brilliance for the past few years with his Battlestar Galactica reboot, so there’s a chance this could actually be interesting.  Van Heijningen is a wild card, as his previous credits consist solely of commercials.  That doesn’t count him out though as other directors who came from the land of advertising include David Fincher, Gore Verbinski, Zack Snyder…

For me, the proposed plot is the sticking point here.  We already know in pretty good detail what happened at the Norwegian camp.  We’ve seen the spaceship in the ice, the block containing the specimen taken back to their camp, and the resulting destruction.  We can assume the alien’s assault played out fairly identical to what eventually went down at the US outpost.  So what is there to see this time?

They could potentially step inside the alien ship I suppose.  They could screw with the alien visually, presenting him in CGI instead of awesome Rob Bottin-like practical effects.  They could end the film with cameos from the entire cast of the 1982 Carpenter classic.  Anything I’m forgetting?

What do you think? Can Moore overcome the project’s obvious challenges?


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  • Casteel
    i don't know about this. one of my favorite movies of all time is 'the thing' and now they plan on remaking/re-imaging it? wtf! i don't think i would go and see it if it was all about the Norwegian camp. that just sounds boring. now, if there was a whole new plot involving the info from the us camp and then it progressed or something that will be better. all i can do is relate it to predator 2. they take predator from the jungle to the city. and the whole movie is about a danny glover looking for him because he's pissed and a group of people who have researched it from the explosion in the jungle so they can study it. something like that for the thing sounds better than what they may go with.
  • I can't freaking stand remakes/reboots/re-imaginings. What happened to originality? Why do people feel the need to remake a movie that was perfect in it's original form like The Thing was?

    It's all just a money thing. The blood-sucking leeches in Hollywood just want to squeeze a little more cash out of a franchise that already made money. "Oh, The Thing was great! People liked it! I bet they'd pay us to see another take on it!" Money money money. B.S

    I won't sit here and say every single remake/reboot/re-imagining is a terrible idea, there are a set of circumstances where it may be appropriate. But the overwhelming MAJORITY are pure garbage. No one in their right mind could honestly say they think it is a good idea or it will be a good film. I really don't want them to ruin The Thing. It was fine the way it was, don't go back and make another one. Not cool.
  • I know, man. We've had a whole barrage of bullshit for the past 10 years... welcome to the 2000s! An era of stupidity.
  • wow. People are really out of ideas. I keep seeing news about remakes, sequels, prequels, and adaptations.

    Hollywood... always proving itself to be a joke!
  • I'm okay with this. I liked the original Thing too. It was very good. But why cant we make another one? If people enjoyed it , they most surely would enjoy another one, right? I don't see what the problem is.
  • Why call it a remake? It clearly sounds like its going to be a prequel. I'm more ok with a prequel or a sequel of sorts than a remake. The John Carpenter version is flawless and will continue to hold up 50 years into the future - the practical effects are that good.
  • Mladen
    I recently showed it to my girlfriend (who was skeptical... not least because kurt russell is in it) and she was scared shitless. The sense of claustrophobia, paranoia and loss of trust is still so very palpable. Its one of my all-time favorite horror films, and I can't imagine how they think they could make it better... Paul Walker in a parka?

    Seriously, if its not a bad remake of a classic film, its a bad remake of recently popular foreign film. How many mainstream american films were released in the past four years that were sequels/prequels/spinoffs/remakes/reboots/adaptations? Has anybody ever done the numbers on this?
  • I never compiled "official" statistics, but I have a pretty good idea about it. See, I was doing research for a post to go up on the site I write for, it was about reboots/remakes/re-imaginings whatever you want to call them. I did a lot of research. The numbers are shocking. Just to see how many remakes were made in the last year, and how many are in development right now, you wouldn't believe it. I read page after page about some of the worst ideas for remakes ever. You should google remakes/reboots. You'll see. It's crazy.
  • Mladen
    wow, i had a search, and i see what you mean....
    A lot of these I can't even work out why... or how.
    Howard Stern's Porkys?
    Rashomon (in modern day america???)
  • Chris
    It would be nice if Zack Snyder was attached. If he can turn something with as weak a plot as 300 into a glorious spectacle then he could save this flick.
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