Source: Shock ‘Till You Drop

For those of you not in the know, a prequel to John Carpenter’s classic 1982 film, The Thing is in the works, with actor Joel Edgerton (young Owen Lars from the Star Wars prequels) cast in the lead role. He recently sat down with Shock ‘Till You Drop to talk about the new film.

Concerning how the prequel leads into the original 1982 John Carpenter film:

“Well, it’s a prequel and definitely the Norwegian base is modeled on the base you see in the Carpenter film,” he told us. “Being a prequel you’ll see a lot of tie-ins as to how the base comes to be the way it is in the Carpenter film, being so destroyed, and that evidence you see in the Carpenter film, We’ll get a glimpse into that. It’s great because you have a bunch of people behind making it—Eric Newman and Marc (Abraham), the producers at Strike (Entertainment), those guys and Matthijs the director, they have such respect for the original film that they’re not trying to do a remake, they’re just trying to pay homage to the original and also do the right thing with what I think is a real cool way in to doing that, and revisiting the material.”

Concerning the story and its ability to stand on its own, Edgerton continues by saying that, “…this film will stand up as a story. For anyone who has not seen the original, it will just be a self-contained film, but it also has a lot of curious links and snaps of the old movie for the people who are fans or are familiar with the Carpenter movie.”

Sounds exciting to me. John Carpenter’s original film has become one of my new favorite sci-fi/horror films in the last few years, and it thrills me to know that there’s a prequel coming. From what Joel Edgerton is saying, it sounds like it is shaping up to be one fine film.

The Thing prequel (as of right now, it is only called “The Thing” on IMDB, but I suspect that will change) is directed by Matthijs van Heijningen Jr. and hits theaters nationwide in the U.S. next year.