You’ve known a prequel to The Thing
was in the works, but perhaps you’ve been lulled into a false sense of
security by the relative lack of movement lately. The quiet project has
started to rear it’s ugly, dog-mutilating tentacle… appendage…
things though, and has set shooting dates. The twitter feed for Production Weekly has revealed that it shall be Toronto’s icy tundra that hosts the production and that it will be lensing from March to June.
There’s
little else to report at this point except to remind you that we’ll be
seeing the events leading up to a mysterious dog jog, as scripted by
Star Trek and Battlestar Galactica scribe Ronald D. Moore, rescripted
by Eric Heisserer (who wrote the impending Elm Street remake), and
directed by newcomer Matthijs van Heijningen Jr.
I don’t think anyone is really sweating this prequel, but The Thing is a bit of a sacred treasure ‘round these parts, so expect us to keep a sharp eye on this project.
UPDATE: Looking around a bit more, I found that the fine fellows at Bloody Disgusting managed a few months back to get words with the prequel’s director, who refused to comment one way or another on the rumors of a MacReady sibling’s involvement in the story, and had more to say on the creation of the story,
“It’s a really fascinating
way to construct a story because were doing it by autopsy, by examining
very, very closely everything we know about the Norwegian camp and
about the events that happened there from photos and video footage
that’s recovered… from a visit to the base, the
director, producer and I have gone through it countless times marking,
you know, there’s a fire axe in the door, we have to account for
that…were having to reverse engineer it, so those details all matter to
us ‘cause it all has to make sense.”
22 comments
No CG please. Give Bottin the gig.
Uggggggggh. I hate prequels. Moore is so much better than this, but for some reason has got on the Lucas train of providing easy-to-tell stories.
It's not Moores writing on this we need to worry about – he gave us DS9 and Galactica so earns a lot of credit there – it's the rescriptin by some other bloke Rhys the potential problem. Moore's a smart guy and knows The Thing is a sacred cow to scifi fans. Whether the other guy cares is another matter. If more of Moore's script survives than doesn't, it's got a fair chance if being decent. Although that said, the effects work is where this movie will rise or fall, being so damn important to the original. Anything less than perfect cgi will kill this movie long before the script problems do. Cos we know we're not getting practical effects, unfortunately.
Maybe we will get a Thing vs Mega Shark movie starring Lorenzo Lamas and Grace Jones.
Dumb. Just call it something else and make it in 3-D, all the kids will go crazy for it.
We ALL need more Mega Shark movies as far as I'm concerned.
I heard that Moore wanted to delve into the origins of the creature and the circumstances that lead it to crash on Earth. If that was one of the casualties of the rewrite or not I do not know, but that was one of the aspects that interested me in this movie. That and the fact we could get to see inside the alien ship. I guess we are just going to have to see.
…but "The Thing from Another World" kind of IS a prequel to "The Thing"…
Not interested in this at all. I love the mystery of the thing's origins, and I don't to see what happens at the Norwegian camp. I saw what happens at the Americans' camp, so I assume something similar happened at the other one. Why do we need to explain every little thing about previously existing properties?
Norwegian Brother? Right. You'd think at some point, when they go over to the other camp, he'd be all like, "Have you seen my Norwegian brother anywhere?" "You've got a Norwegian brother here, on the world's most deserted continent, just a few miles away from our camp, and you never mentioned it?" "Yeah, must have slipped my mind somehow." "I didn't know Macreedy was a Norwegian name?" "Yep. Totally Norwegian."
"HEY SWEDENS!" "They're Norwegian, Mac."
When are filmmakers going to realize the obvious fact that it is nigh impossible to make a good prequel? You just can't do it. There's two fundemental problems with prequels that simply can't be overcome: 1) they're telling you something that you already know and 2) they remove all the mystery of the movie that they're prequeling.
I don't want to know where the THING came from. I don't want to know what happened in the Norwegian camp. Just seeing all the dead bodies and carnage and aftermath was enough for me. It created a cool mystery. A mystery that will be dissolved when this sure-to-be-shitty prequel is made. I mean, one of the things that made Boba Fett cool was that you didn't know what he looked like under that helmet. Well, know, thanks to the Star Wars prequels, we do. He's just a dude.
I used to watch all of these new remakes and sequels out of morbid curiousity, but I'm done. I shan't be watching this, not even when it comes out on cable.
Toronto will hardly be icy between March and June. It'll be 30C near the end of filming, so it'll most likely be an indoor shoot like the first one with (hopefully) some genuine snowy exteriors which they'll film somewhere else. I just hope this doesn't turn into a low budget CGI fest.
So, in this prequel will there be some aspect of a back-story that will then require it's own prequel to explain? All so they can avoid doing the sequel, which would be A) too expensive and B) too hard to come with a happy ending for (can't have thingy get to civilization and ever have any hope of complete eradication). Unless they introduce the idea of immunity.
I know you all love Moore and Galatica, I enjoyed it too, but just because you fancy him as a writer doesn't mean that the IDEA for the prequel is just bad. Not looking forward to this.
Holy shit, that could have used some pre-reading. Anyway, my point was Moore's writing cannot save this production in my mind as it's based on a badddd idea to begin with.
It’s a really fascinating way to construct a story because…on top of getting paid a ton of money to remake a movie with a built in fanbase…. were doing it by autopsy, by examining… and hitting the rewind button a lot… very, very closely everything we know about the Norwegian camp…so far we know that they were killed by "the thing" and had pretty much the same kind of battle that already see in the original film…. and about the events that happened there… they were assimilated by the thing… from photos…nudie pictures in lockers… and video footage…footage of the norwegians entering the ship that gets abrubtly cut off by an old M.A.S.H rerun featuring Jamie Farr in a sexy little number… that’s recovered… from a visit to the base… how low can you go!…, the director, producer and I … as if it really matters….have gone through it countless times marking…on the actual television screen no less…, you know, there’s a fire axe in the door…. maybe there was a fire?…., we have to account for that… cause fire axes are expensive…were having to reverse engineer it… like Ben Affleck in Paycheck and you know that shit is the bomb…, so those details all matter to us ‘cause it all has to make….lot's and lot's of money…..and…. sense.”
I haven't seen the Thing in years. It was a good movie. But this making a prequel being a " fascinating way to construct a story because were doing it by autopsy," crap is all wrong. It's cool to see they got the details right; but we already know what hapened. The only way to have a good prequel would be to show us that everything we were told was not right. Because if they just show us what happend…well, we already know what happened. Because it happened before and it will happen…again, and again and again.
And spoiler alert—Michael Hogan is really the alien.
to heck with the prequel, where can get a copy of that kickass poster?
"…autopsy…"
Read: "necrophilia"
I was discussing this with some norwegian guys in the pub outside Oslo last year. I think this would be the perfect project to hand over to a Norwegian film company to do. This would make it a totally different film and actually give them a chance at making it their own. Instead of Hollywood-ising it. I think this would be the only way to give it any credability.
Let them run with it, film it in Norwegian and bring their own humor and backstory to the characters. If they could "let the Right Thing in", it could work out being very interesting in it's own right.
Otherwise we're going to have Bucky McReady wondering where his older brother is and why he doesn't call any more.
#21–Umm…you do realize that if the Norwegians made the movie and it had any little bit of success, then Hollywood would say let's remake that prequel for America. Then it would not only have one bad strike in that it was a prequel but two because it would be an American remake. I'm not saying the Norwegians can't or shouldn't make a movie….I am saying that Hollywood does have some people who play it too safe and often stupid.
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