The Thing Takes Shape in a New Prequel

It seems prequels are all the rage right now from Ridley Scott‘s new Alien flicks to an origin story for the Planet of the Apes, now we have a prequel to John Carpenter’s cult movie The Thing.

Based on the novella Who Goes There? by John W. Campbell, Jr it was first made as a film back in 1951 entitled The Thing from Another World and was said to have been directed by it’s producer, the legendary Howard Hawks, and was a much a statement about communism and the cold war as well as the fear of the enemy within.

When John Carpenter remade the film in 1982, he embraced the stronger elements of the original story and packed the movie with decidedly gory FX which was too much for audiences and failed at the box-office though later became a cult classic on home video.

Check out one of the memorable sequences.

[jwplayer config=”movie_wide” mediaid=”2399″]Courtesy of Universal

This new prequel stars Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Eric Christian Olsen,  Joel Edgerton, Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje, Ulrich Thomsen, Jonathan Walker and a host of Norwegian actors. Carpenter’s film was famous for the visuals which used Rob Bottin‘s incredible animatronics to bring the horrific imagery to life, and whilst these effects could be accomplished today purely with digital effects, the reason for this prequel is to bring those defining elements back to the screen as a homage to the cult classic.  It will use the best of  both worlds to create a truly horrifying  experience for audiences featuring practical effects and CGI to create The Thing, as well as the psychological drama focusing on the paranoia of the hidden enemy.

The physical effects are supplied by Amalgamated Dynamics who won an Oscar for their work on Death Becomes Her and most recently worked on the Alien vs Predator series.

Norwegian research camp

So if you’re wondering about the prequel idea, the basis is all in the beginning of John Carpenter’s classic where we see the last survivors of the Norwegian team trying to shoot the The Thing which has taken form as an innocent dog. Kurt Russell then ventures out to the camp and recovers some left over body goo as well as a video documenting an alien vessel trapped within a glazier – what ensued in the Norwegian camp is the basis for the new film.

Check out a clip which sets up the prequel story.

[jwplayer config=”movie_wide” mediaid=”2401″]Courtesy of Universal

In the new film Mary Elizabeth Winstead plays paleontologist Kate Lloyd who travels to the desolate region and joins the Norwegian scientific team that has stumbled across the extraterrestrial ship.  She discovers an organism trapped inside the ice that seems to have died eons before and during a simple experiment  it is freed and one by one, each of the team becomes the target.  Eric Christian Olsen plays Adam who’s been friends with Kate since college and recruits her when the Norwegians need someone with her extraction skills after finding the vessel.

When Collider interviewed co-star Eric Christian Olsen he spoke of director Matthijs van Heijningen Jr.’s vision for the new film:

Eric Christian Olsen as Adam Goodman

He wanted to do justice to what John Carpenter did so well in his version of it in the scene where they are testing the blood, that’s the kind of paranoia and the kind of tension that’s so hard to do in storytelling and that’s what Matthijs wanted to do. He really wanted to do storytelling versus “somebody comes up and chops somebody up with an axe and they run away and pick out the next person

Aussie Joel Edgerton who played Owen Lars in Revenge of the Sith and most recently appeared in Animal Kingdom and the theater version of a Streetcar name Desire, was also interviewed about the new film and gave some insight into the FX featured in the new prequel:

Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje as Derek Jameson and Joel Edgerton as Sam Carter

I’m really impressed that the film is going to be a really good percentage of both practical FX and CG, that there’s always been something to look at. I think there’s only been one day out of the whole shoot where I’ve heard J.J. the first with a tennis ball at the end of a pool cue going “Okay…” imitating the movies of the tentacle of the Thing, but other than that, we’ve had these great practical FX. They’ve gone to great measures to make sure that even on days when they know that what eventually will be on the screen is CG, that someone’s been out there with the tentacle showing us where it’s moving and how it will look.

Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje who made a big impression when he starred as Mr. Eko in the second season of Lost also gave his take on the new Thing prequel:

I think my character, Jameson, was the first one to actually see the creature bust out. And I remember when we were shooting the scene, we had it in a block of ice and I was like, “Oh, how am I going to do this?” I’ve watched those corny horror movies where people are like feigning fear. I’m just like, “I can’t overact.” And I went in and I this Thing in the ice and you *see* it and it looked… Right there, the magnitude of it. And then you start to think as an actor, “Well, what would I really do if I saw, if we really found a creature and dug it out and put it in this ice. It’s not too far-fetched.” Know what I mean? It’s right there in front of you, so for me, it was all fodder. It was great fodder that helps you do a better job. I mean, they’ve done a brilliant job the special effects.

The Thing takes shape in Cinemas April 29, 2011.