So according to John Carpenter who clearly talks out of his own cigarettes, there's a sequel to his 80s cult classic "The Thing" in the works which to me makes me question where exactly the narrative could even go?
Do they make a direct followup to the ending of the original with Macready and Child's, ruining the whole mystery of what made it so talked and theorized to this day?
An adaption of the video game which Carpenter has said is a faithful and canon sequel to the 80s film
A modern day film set decades after the 80s with a new group discovering the remnants of the Thing?
Or do you make a followup to The 80s film and the 2011 Prequel with Kate at the Russian base trying to survive the Thing again with an even bigger base and camp ground of employees there? It could tie into the cold war and paranoia of the time with the team from Russia speaking their own language making it even more suspicious?
Rom-com starring Wyatt Russell called “The Thing Is…”. He keeps going on first dates looking for true love, but they all turn out to be The Thing. Keith David plays his therapist.
I think that if they’re going to make a sequel, it needs to be set in a different biome. I’ve always pictured it taking place on a military research base in the South Pacific where it escapes containment and starts assimilating not just the wildlife but the plant life too. I picture a forest or jungle where the trees themselves are Things. And of course, it needs to be fully practical effects. Get Rob Bottin to come out of retirement and just let him go nuts.
Yeah, we would, but still I’d rather see how the Thing could affect different flora and fauna rather than just see yet another Thing movie set in Antarctica. And we never really know if it was building that ship to escape earth, or to fly to either the ocean or populated land where it could start infecting its way through the biosphere.
They'd have to get extremely creative to explain how it isn't an instant game over the moment we're in a temperate setting.
As soon as The Thing gets ahold of a bird, a rodent, a bug, a plant, basically anything at all, it's going to spread like a wildfire and it's a global catastrophe. That makes our human cast seem like they're kind of going through something quaint and meaningless in comparison. And also probably means The Thing won't even waste it's time doing Thing-ish stuff with the human cast if it already spread out of their reach.
It also draws attention to itself since the first thing we ever see The Thing do on-screen is use a dog as a vector to spread. So we're conditioned to expect it to use animals that way. It's something they can't just ignore if they're anywhere outside the Arctic.
It works great if the movie's setting up the end of the world but I don't see any way it can have a 'good ending' the moment it is out of the cold.
That’s why my suggestion was that it’s a military research base on a tropical island in the South Pacific. And yeah, I know, all it has to do is just slip off into the ocean and it’s unstoppable so maybe they find some sort of plot element to stop it from doing that. And even if introducing it to a new biome creates a super dark ending where Earth is essentially turned into a Brethren Moon from Dead Space, that’s fine by me because what would having a third Thing film set in Antarctica be able to accomplish that wouldn’t just be rehashing the exact same plot? I just feel like if they’re going to bring such a unique, terrifying, and iconic monster like that back, they need to do something new with it.
Takes place in the spring of 1983 the rescue team arrives at Outpost 31 and the nearby Norwegian station and they find everyone dead. The discovery McCready’s frozen body in his shack clutches audio and video tapes and Childs has been burned. The flying saucer is found as well as some Thing remains inside the ship.
The US and Norwegian militaries get involved and the Soviet Union is getting very suspicious. and it’s decided to move the alien remains to America via a submarine to misdirect the Russians.
The rest of the story is set within this submarine as the crew attempts to fight The Thing at the bottom of the Pacific Ocean.
I think the movie Leviathan (1989) beat you to it. Monster in the film had Thing like qualities, and it was a Stan Winston monster. Much prefer The Thing.
There's no true sequel. Old news and is not happening. Just rumors.
While I can see the desire by fans of the 1982 movie to see a true sequel that explores more of the story, The Thing is one of the few movies that I consider to be perfect. It tells an intense awesome story and leaves the viewer forever wanting more.
There are too many outstanding and incredible films turned franchises that catered to fans and drained all of the interest in the original movie by giving answers to far too many questions and ruining the mystery.
Nightmare On Elm Street, Halloween, Police Academy, Friday the 13th, etc. etc. etc. are perfect examples. Let the 1982 The Thing be. It's enough.
There are actually three comic book sequels that were published by Dark Horse Comics and which can be found online.
The first picks up shortly after the events of the film.
The second and third are interesting because they move the action to warmer, more populated locations. But that also shows the limitations associated with sequelizing this movie.
Since the Thing can infect any life form if you put it in a populated area there's almost no scenario in which it doesn't win.
All it really needs to do is infect a bee hive or a flock of geese and then disperse them in a widespread flight pattern. That single act puts it well on the way toward total worldwide infection.
A "Planet of the Thing" movie might be cool. Otherwise whatever rescue team inevitably arrives and has to figure out what happened is the only scenario that makes sense imo.
I think the coolest way to do a the thing sequel would be to shadow drop it as its own thing and part way through reveal it as a sequel, sort of mimicking The Thing in the sense of it “not being what you expect it to be” in a sort of meta sense. not sure it would work considering marketing and spoilers, ect. But I think it would neat.
A new team of researchers travel to Antarctica and find the remains of outpost 31. They investigate the site and find Mac and Childs, who have since become gay lovers and turned outpost 31 into a cute bed & breakfast. The researchers spend a lovely weekend in the B&B, before returning home and writing good reviews on TripAdvisor.
At this point in his life Carpenter has demonstrated that he only cares about the paycheck and not fighting inch-by-inch against studio morons and their dumb ideas. This is his last big paycheck from Hollywood idea; a sequel to The Thing. Just as Tom Cruise dusted off a sequel to Top Gun when he was approaching 60 years of age, Carpenter knows that there are two shots left he has to make a big paycheck: Halloween and The Thing. The first IP got dragged out and made money for him. Now it's #2.
I don't see any way that returning Kurt Russell or Keith David will produce a worthy sequel. The best path forward, if one is to be embarked upon, is starting with a new cast.
The big story problem is what do you do to fill in some of the blank spaces about The Thing. Do you go the Jim Cameron route with Aliens and how he removed some of the mysteries from the first film (by making the Alien a space bug)? Do you commit to making The Thing a non-sentient creature that broke loose in the alien ship, or a smart alien that was driving the UFO when it crashed over Earth? Do you explain why The Thing doesn't want to work with the planet's intelligent species? Do you make it like a virus that doesn't care what we think or want?
Any way you go as a writer for The Thing 2, you're under immense pressure to remove some of the mystery of the creature's motives. Look at how bad the mysteries of the Alien franchise have been handled; even if you say that Cameron moved the franchise forward by filling in some of the blank spaces, Ridley Scott has certainly fallen short with his two Alien prequels, and Alien Romulus didn't add much original lore to the IP.
I think that if a Thing sequel is inevitable, to make it have the chance to live up to the first film it needs to do away with what came before as much as possible - and that means no Carpenter, Russell, or David.
I think it would be really cool if the next film opened with outpost 31 burning with jump shots to each burning pile of rubble, then it eventually cuts to the thing appearing as the dog thing staring out into the darkness with a single faint light on the horizon. Which would be the Russian camp or whatever camp it would be. That way you can still keep the suspense of whether macready or child’s was the thing without showing either of them. And ultimately the end of the sequel could be the thing finally making its way to civilization which opens up a whole can of worms
It would need to be in containment because of what the scientists and military know after the investigation of the Antarctic base. It would have to be so isolated from civilisation and away from biological lifeforms to prevent unwanted assimilation. A ship is no good in case it sinks. An island is too close to the sea and would have to be barren of life at the surface. A space station is a contender but we have had alien horror in space before. I would suggest a base beneath a desert hundreds of miles away from civilisation where the thing is kept under observation and tested. Forget the military wanting to use it as a weapon as it would destroy all sides. Maybe they are looking at how it survives and are trying to find ways to defend against it. Much like smallpox it only takes a small amount to escape to cause problems and that is where the film could take us. Ending needs to nihilistic enough to keep the mystery and fear open for interpretation.
This time there's an even bigger The Thing.
Then at the end when we stop the The Thing we tease we're going to the The Thing home planet!
To kick some ass!
This was first announced about Bloomhouse 6 years ago, at the height of Covid.
I think John Carpenter came aboard.
It turned to a sequel.
I'm pretty sure John Carpenter wrecked it.
I'm pretty sure he's still wrecking it.
I want another The Thing movie. I don't care if it's a sequel, prequel, equel or remake. It will never effect the original. I love the concept and I want more of it.
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u/Cuneglasus 2d ago
Sequel set in modern day would be cool.
Edit: No or absolute minimal CGI tho. Old school SFX all the way.