How it ties into the Carpenter movie
Years before David Cronenberg’s The Fly set itself up as one of the better horror remakes, John Carpenter’s disturbing 1982 remake of the 1951 sci-fi classic The Thing from Another World had become somewhat of a cult classic among horror fans. Even so, it pretty much bombed when released theatrically, so it was quite surprising when Universal announced earlier this year they were greenlighting a direct prequel that tells the story of the Norwegian base where Kurt Russell, the hero of the first movie, arrives and immediately realizes something is wrong.
A few months back, Joel Edgerton, writer and star of the Australian crime-thriller The Square, directed by his brother Nash, was cast in the lead role of The Thing prequel, and he’s now been shooting for a week in Toronto. When ShockTillYouDrop.com caught up with him earlier today, we asked him how much this prequel would be tied into the Carpenter movie.
“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 itâEric 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.”
We asked Joel whether he’d seen any of the designs or any actual creatures on the set as of yet. “No, not yet, but I’ve been on set and I’ve been at the base, and it’s a full station, and it’s f*cking exciting. We’re out there in Antarctica, it’s amazing. We’re shooting in Toronto, but it feels like we’re there.”
We mused on how strange a concept it is to do a prequel to a movie so long after the original, and while he agreed with us, he told us no one should worry about the movie not working for those who for some reason hadn’t seen Carpenter’s movie.
“As with anything that has that much time between drinks, so to speak, is 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.”
The Square opens in New York and L.A. on Friday. You can look for our full interview with Joel and his brother Nash over on ComingSoon.net later this week.
Source: Edward Douglas
