Sci-Fi Film and Television Developments

The Thing (prequel)

11/15/10 – Blastr.com reported that the prequel to John Carpenter's classic The Thing was set for release on April 29, 2011 and now it isn't.  Universal bumped The Thing from the release calendar and slotted the Fast and the Furious brand extension Fast Five in its place.  The official line is that The Thing isn't ready.

6/16/10 - According to Coming Soon, The Thing prequel will release on April 29, 2011.  Here's information about the film.  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.

2/8/10 - Mary Elizabeth Winstead and Joel Edgerton will star in The Thing, Universal's latest take on the shape-shifting alien who terrorizes a group of people in a remote facility, according to The Hollywood Reporter.  Matthijs Van Heijningen is directing the latest movie, which was written by Ronald D. Moore and Eric Heisserer. Strike Entertainment's Marc Abraham and Eric Newman are producing.  Winstead will play a Ph.D. candidate who joins a Norwegian research team in Antarctica after it discovers an alien ship in the ice. When a trapped organism is freed and begins a series of attacks, she is forced to team with a blue-collar mercenary helicopter pilot (Edgerton) to stop the rampage.  A March 15 start date in Toronto is planned.

1/13/10 - Director Matthijs Van Heijningen is gearing up for a March shoot of The Thing in Toronto, based on Eric Heisserer's screenplay that begins when an alien spaceship is discovered far beneath the ice near a remote Antarctica outpost, Bloody-Disgusting.com reports; the movie is a prequel to John Carpenter's 1982 film of the same name.

1/4/10 - Production Weekly tweeted that Universal is going ahead with its prequel to John Carpenter's 1982 SF/horror classic The Thing, about members of a U.S. scientific research team in the Antarctic fighting off an alien menace that can assume the form of any living being.   The new Thing prequel—reportedly about what happens at the Norwegian camp that found the Thing before it infiltrated the American camp—will be directed by commercial director: Matthijs van Heijningen Jr. The screenplay is by the writer of the Nightmare on Elm Street reboot, Eric Heisserer.

3/27/09 - Bloody-Disgusting reported that writer Eric Heisserer has been hired to rewrite Ronald Moore's script for The Thing, a prequel film to John Carpenter's 1982 horror movie of the same name.  The site reports that Universal Pictures and Strike Entertainment have tapped Heisserer, whom the site earlier reported was also tapped to rewrite Wesley Strick's screenplay for the upcoming remake of A Nightmare on Elm Street.  Matthijs van Heijningen Jr. is attached to direct The Thing, which follows scientists in the Antarctic as they are confronted by a shape-shifting alien who can assume the appearance of anyone.

3/17/09 – SCI FI Wire reported that Ronald D. Moore has completed his script for The Thing, which he said will be a companion piece to John Carpenter's 1982 sci-fi horror movie of the same name.  In Moore's film, a prequel, audiences will meet the body-snatching alien life form in the period before it attacked R.J. MacReady (Kurt Russell) and his team during an Antarctic expedition, events depicted in Carpenter's movie.  Moore said, “I was working on The Thing. I finished. I did my last draft a few weeks ago and turned it in. They [Universal Pictures] seem happy. They have a director [Matthijs Van Heijningen] assigned, and we'll wait to see when and if they green-light it.”  He said the following about the prequel, “We wanted a piece that would link up to [the Carpenter film] and not supplant it. So we didn't try to sort of completely reinvent what it was. We wanted a movie that would sort of live alongside it.”

1/29/09 - Universal has hired Battlestar Galactica executive producer Ronald Moore to write a prequel to John Carpenter's classic 1982 sci-fi horror movie The Thing, Variety reported.  Moore will write the script, and commercials director Matthijs Van Heijningen will direct the re-imagining. The new project reportedly borrows heavily from the John W. Campbell Jr. short story "Who Goes There?," the basis of the Carpenter film and the 1951 Howard Hawks original movie The Thing From Another World.  The prequel is set in a Norwegian camp and chronicles how the shape-shifting alien was first discovered and overcame the inhabitants of that camp.

9/15/08 - Director Marc Abraham as saying that he is producing a prequel film to the 1982 John Carpenter's The Thing.  It's unclear yet if there's a remake of the original planned or a prequel or a sequel.  More to come we're sure.

The Sci Fi Channel plans to air the remake of John Carpentar's 1982 film.  Rumors are flying the this may be a sequel instead of a remake.  No dates yet.

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