Legendary filmmaker John Carpenter teased a potential sequel to the 1982 sci-fi horror The Thing.
"I have been sworn to secrecy, okay, because there may be, I don’t know if there will be, there may be a Thing 2," the director said during a Q&A session during Texas Frightmare Weekend, according to Creepy Catalog. While Carpenter did not go into any more detail, he did reveal that he's finishing up a new television series, titled John Carpenter's Suburban Screams, and working on another Lost Themes music album.
Based on the novella Who Goes There? by John W. Campbell Jr., John Carpenter's The Thing follows a team of American researchers in Antarctica who find their station invaded by a stealthy and paranoia-inducing alien that seeks to assimilate and then imitate other organisms. The movie stars Kurt Russell as helicopter pilot R.J. MacReady and Keith David as Childs, the chief mechanic.
The Thing About The Thing
The movie initially flopped upon release, even receiving a nomination at the Golden Raspberry Awards for Worst Musical Score; however, it eventually gained a cult following and is now considered one of the best horror movies ever made. Not only has it been referenced in prominent pop-cultural IPs like Stranger Things, The X-Files, Resident Evil 4 and Among Us, but several other notable filmmakers, including Guillermo del Toro, Quentin Tarantino and J.J. Abrams, have openly cited John Carpenter's The Thing as a source of inspiration.
While Carpenter actually directing The Thing 2 may or may not happen, the original has already received multiple other sequels outside the context of the film. Chuck Pfarrer wrote a two-part comic series that takes place 24 hours after the movie's conclusion, which Dark Horse Comics published, and developer Computer Artworks created a video game that was released in 2002 for PC, PlayStation 2 and Xbox. The story follows a group of U.S. soldiers, who come to the Antarctic station to investigate what happened to the researchers and encounter the titular alien.
Moreover, a prequel movie, also titled The Thing, by director Matthijs van Heijningen Jr. and writer Eric Heisserer debuted in 2011. Starring Mary Elizabeth Winstead and Joel Edgerton, the story follows the Norwegian research group that first found the shape-changing extraterrestrial buried in the ice. Many critics argued the prequel fell short of the original and called out the lack of practical effects.
John Carpenter's The Thing is available to stream on Netflix.
Source: Creepy Catalog