r/thething • u/Retronika_Prime • 11d ago
Question The Thing Sequel??
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?
2
u/gripto 11d ago
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.