Back in May, filmmaker John Carpenter teased a potential direct sequel to his iconic 1982 Antarctic-set sci-fi horror film “The Thing” may be in development.
Answering a fan at Texas Frightmare Weekend, he said “I have been sworn to secrecy, okay, because there may be, I don’t know if there will be, there may be a ‘Thing 2’.”
Since then, there’s been frustratingly nothing. Now, another director of a related project has weighed in with a different kind of sequel talk.
Matthijs van Heijningen Jr., the Dutch filmmaker who helmed 2011’s “The Thing” which serves as a prequel to the Carpenter film, recently spoke with SyFy Wire and revealed a scrapped idea for a direct sequel to his film.
Specifically, it would follow paleontologist Kate Lloyd (Mary Elizabeth Winstead), the sole survivor of the Norwegian camp massacre from his film, in events that presumably would take place concurrently with the 1982 film:
“Kate would escape and would be picked up at sea and tries to warn the world at an oil platform near the South Pole. The monster would break loose on the rig. I liked the oil rig mayhem idea.”
When his film turned out to be a dud critically and financially however, that idea got thrown out the window:
“The Carpenter version was so good, and a lot of fans were almost offended by the prequel and didn’t see the necessity for a follow-up. But now I fully understand that it was a bit early.”
He also spoke about one of the biggest complaints regarding the film – that a lot of the practical effects developed by SFX legends Alec Gillis and Tom Woodruff Jr. were ditched and replaced with bad CG in post-production:
“I know this is a debated topic, but looking back, we were caught in a cross-zone where animatronics were old-fashioned, and the CGI wasn’t good enough. We made the wrong decision to do it in post-production [when it came to] making the monster design in the computer. I regret that now.”
Asked what he’d do differently if given the chance to make the prequel over again, he replies:
“Better character development, less CGI, and more paranoia between the characters. The Thing is about not being able to trust anybody. That could have been explored further.”
The 2011 film recently became one of Netflix’s most-viewed titles in the United States earlier this year.
Source: SyFy Wire
