Summary
As part ofSan Diego Comic-Con, producer Roy Lee details the TV show sequel toThe Thingthat never saw the light of day. Theinfluential 1982 sci-fi horror moviefrom director John Carpenter, which has influenced filmmakers like Guillermo del Toro and Quentin Tarantino, is considered among the best of its genre. It has spawned comic book adaptations, video games, and a 2011 remake. But there was one project, a planned miniseries, that never got off the ground.
Speaking atCollider’s Producers on Producing panel during SDCC 2024, Lee opened up about why a television adaptation ofThe Thingnever moved forward. Lee, a producer onThe BarbarianandLate Night with the Devil, explained that he wanted to work with Oscar-nominatedShawshank Redemptionwriter andWalking Deadshow creator Frank Darabont on the project. The duo even had an idea for it, which is shared in the quote below, butnetwork heads were not impressed:
“I was with Frank Darabont after he’d done The Walking Dead. We were working on a sequel series for The Thing, which was picking up in the present day after the events of The Thing actually happened. It was done as a series, and he wanted to do it like The Walking Dead and turn it into a thing set in the U.S., but we never got it off the ground. We got a script written, but the studio hated it.”
This TV Show Wasn’t The Only One Attempt At Recapturing The Thing’s Magic
Carpenter’s Film Is Hard To Match
Lee doesn’t elaborate heavily on what the plot forThe Thingtelevision adaptation would have been. But there had been plans for a four-part miniseries, which would have been produced by Darabont and written by fellowWalking Deadscribe David Leslie Johnson-McGoldrick.The story would have followed a Russian team who recover the corpses of MacReady and Childs, played by Kurt Russell and Keith David in the 1982 film,in addition to remnants of the Thing.The story would have moved forward 23 years and focused on the Thing’s escape and subsequent attempts at containing the monster.
There have been other attempts to keepThe Thingalive, such as reports of Blumhouse working on a follow-up. Carpenter’s sci-fi horror was based on the 1938 novellaWho Goes There?by author John W. Campbell, Jr., and the remake would have leaned on an extended version of the story by Campbell as its basis.The Blumhouse project has yet to announce a cast or a director, though Carpenter has said he’s involved.
Campbell’s extended novel version, which was found in an early manuscript, was published in 2019 under the titleFrozen Hell: The Book That Inspired The Thing.
It’s no easy task to zero in on what made the original stand out to audiences and influence future Oscar winners despite largely negative initial reviews.Whether it’s Kurt Russell’s magnetic performance asThe Thingcast’s leador the fact that Carpenter tapped into something sublime in an otherwise wild premise, even network execs have at times agreed that it’s a difficult film to replicate — though they’ve tried.
The Thing
Cast
A team of researchers set out to study an alien spacecraft found in Antarctica, where they also discover an alien body on the site. The alien buried in ice is actually alive and has the ability to imitate human form. The group must find a way to distinguish who the real person is from The Thing and stay alive. John Carpenter’s 1982 film is a remake of 1951’s The Thing from Another World and stars Kurt Russel as the hero RJ MacReady.
