The Thing You Fear the Most is Now Among You

Because the producers think John Carpenter's cult classic “The Thing” was already perfect, so making a remake would be like "painting a mustache on the Mona Lisa", they convinced Universal Studios to allow them to create a prequel to that film which actually a remake of 1951’s film “The Thing from Another World”. Question is why they don’t think to make a sequel instead as the original film is let loose on nearby New Zealand? However, this prequel still gonna use the title of the original film since the prequel project team couldn't think of a subtitle (for example, "The Thing: Begins") that sounded good and felt reverential. Adapted from a 1938 science fiction novella by John W. Campbell, Jr. that was voted by the Science Fiction Writers of America as one of the finest science fiction novellas ever written, Carpenter's “The Thing” was a more faithful adaptation of the novella with strong cast of character actors and plenty of truly astounding but grotesque make-up effects from Rob Bottin. But opening two weeks after huge sci-fi flick "E.T. " that already won the hearts and wallets of audiences back in 1982, “The Thing” eventually met a really poor box office performance. But fortunately it has gone on to gain a cult following with the release on home video and was subsequently 'novelized' in 1982, also adapted into a Dark Horse’s comic book miniseries that followed by a video game sequel in 2002. The movie even now considered as one example of the rare instance where a remake is far superior to the original. So how about this 2011 prequel? Producers Marc Abraham and Eric Newman, who were behind the quite good remake of "Dawn of the Dead", said that it won’t just fill out the backstory of the original but allows some of the same elements to be seen from an entirely different point of view. The plan is also to go old school with the creature effects with most of the FXs are being done practically with the minimal CG provided by FX house Image Engine who did the aliens in "District 9". Set at the Norwegian base camp several days before the events at the American base camp in the Carpenter original, chronicles how the shape-shifting alien was first discovered, the movie director Matthijs van Heijningen Jr. and crew also researched the original film and novella thoroughly to recreate the Norwegian camp accurately down to the smallest detail. Various Norwegian actors even were cast to play the supporting roles, though the key roles will be American characters. The language barrier between them and the English speaking characters is exploited to add to the film's feeling of paranoia.“The Thing” Synopsis: 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.In a Place Where There Is Nothing, They Found These Facts:

# Matthijs van Heijningen Jr. became involved in the project when his first planned feature film, a zombie movie taking place in Las Vegas written and produced by Zack Snyder called “Army of the Dead”, was cancelled by the studio three months before production began. Needing to start all over again, he asked his agent to see if there was a “The Thing” project in development, since “Alien” and “The Thing” are his favourite movies.

# Heijningen Jr. explained that he created the film not to simply be a horror movie, but to also focus largely on the human drama with the interaction between characters, as the first film had. The director felt that horror movies worked better when time was spent to explore the characters' emotional journeys, allowing the audience to care about them.

# The film will show the alien creature in its “pure form”, as it was discovered in its ship by the Norwegians; however, it is not revealed whether this is the creature's original form or the form of another creature it had assimilated.

# The filmmakers drew additional inspiration for the film from the original novel “Who Goes There?”, in making the characters in the film educated scientists as opposed to "blue collar" workers. However, the filmmakers drew no influence from the events of the The Thing video game. The director also drew additional inspiration from the film Alien in creating the film, particularly in regard to casting a female lead, and in the way the alien creatures are filmed by not showing too much of them.# On set, the director had a laptop computer which contained "a million" screen captures of the Carpenter film, which he used as a point of reference to keep the Norwegian camp visually consistent with the first film.

# In order to not try to compete with Kurt Russell's portrayal of the 1982 film's protagonist, MacReady, the character of Kate Lloyd (Winstead) was designed to have traits in common with the character Ellen Ripley from the Alien film series.

# Winstead insisted that the film would not feature any romantic or sexual elements with her character, as it would be inappropriate considering the tone of the film.

# Dennis Storhøi (The 13th Warrior) was cast as Sander but pulled out of production due to personal reasons. He was replaced by Ulrich Thomsen (In a Better World).

# CG elements in the film was confined to matte paintings and set extensions, along with a few instances of "digitally creating extensions on some of the practical animatronic effects". Like the xenomorph in the original "Alien", the creatures and mutation effects will be used sparingly and shot in ways that don't reveal too much.

# Universal delayed the release a full six months to allow some reshoots, the intention was to "enhance existing sequences or to make crystal clear a few story beats or to add punctuation marks to the films feeling of dread.” Lead actress Mary Elizabeth Winstead also was returned to shoot more scenes.

# John Carpenter wished to have a cameo appearance in the film, but scheduling conflicts prevented this.
Sources: Wikipedia, IMDB – Photos courtesy of Universal Pictures