The Thing Prequel Filming in March

If you were like me and hoping all this talk about a prequel to John Carpenter’s The Thing would amount to a whole bunch of nothing, prepare to be disappointed.

From their Twitter account, Production Weekly has confirmed that filming on the project (under the direction of Matthijs van Heijningen, Jr. and a script penned by Battlestar Galactica’s Ron Moore) starts up in March. As many have speculated, the prequel will detail the creature’s arrival on Earth and its infiltration of a Norwegian camp – the same we saw in ruins in Carpenter’s 1982 version.

Sorry, but I’m just not in the prequel fanbase. In fact, can anyone name a genuinely solid prequel? No, Indiana Jones & the Temple of Doom doesn’t count. I’ve bitched about this before and but not every property known to geekdom needs a story to connect the dots for us morons. Some things are better left to our imagination – like the Star Wars prequel trilogy.

Frankly if Universal was itching for another take on The Thing, I have a crazy idea. Why not just do another remake? Both Carpenter’s take and the Christian Nyby/Howard Hawks 1951 Thing from Another World are great movies. Like Invasion of the Body Snatchers, it’s a great story that could benefit from another spin to reflect the times. Even if it sucked, we’ll always have the earlier versions to cherish.