Movies
An Update on ‘The Thing’ Prequel!
It has been a few months since we broke the news that Matthijs van Heijningen Jr. has been tapped to direct The Thing prequel for Universal Pictures and Strike Entertainment. A new interviewed was posted online today with “Battlestar Gallactica” show-runner Ronald D. Moore, who penned the screenplay for the prequel, where he updates us on the status of the project.
“I was working on The Thing. I finished. I did my last draft a few weeks ago and turned it in,” Moore tells Sci Fi Wire “They [Universal Pictures] seem happy. They have a director [Matthijs Van Heijningen] assigned, and we’ll wait to see when and if they green-light it.”
“Well, the idea was to make a companion piece to Carpenter’s,” explaining how this is a prequel and not a remake. “I started on the project with the feeling that Carpenter’s version is just an amazing piece of work. It’s a great film, and we really wanted to honor that version.
“We wanted a piece that would link up to [the Carpenter film] and not supplant it. So we didn’t try to sort of completely reinvent what it was. We wanted a movie that would sort of live alongside it.”
Here’s the synopsis we were exclusively provided a few months ago: The prequel takes place from the Norwegian camps point of view. An American scientific expedition to the frozen wastes of the Antarctic is interrupted by a group of seemingly mad Norwegians pursuing and shooting a dog. The helicopter pursuing the dog crashes leaving no explanation for the chase. During the night, the dog mutates and attacks other dogs in the cage and members of the team that investigate. The team soon realize that an alien life-form with the ability to take over bodies is on the loose and they don’t know who may already have been taken over.
In a recent interview, filmmaker Christopher Nolan explained that he’s always been interested in directing a bona fide horror movie, with the award-winning director going so far as to praise genre creators for their continued risk-taking on the big screen.
If you’ve seen Nolan’s recently released The Odyssey, you’re likely aware that a scary movie helmed by the legendary director could be a very good idea.
After all, Nolan insisted on making use of old-fashioned movie magic and in-camera practical effects when shooting his adaptation of Homer’s epic. This retro approach made Odysseus’ encounters with mythological beings such as the giant cyclops that much more terrifying. By now, fans are undoubtedly aware that the massive creature was partially brought to life by an enormous puppet enhanced with near-invisible CGI, but there were also plenty of forced perspective shots where actor Bill Irwin actually chomped on disturbingly realistic replicas of Ithican soldiers.
As you can see in the below behind-the-scenes test footage shared by the Los Angeles-based Hamer FX, Irwin was given an assortment of latex dolls filled with fake blood and breakable skeletons that he could tear apart on camera. The darkness of Polyphemus’ cave covers up most of the gore in the finished film, but the moment remains a terrifying highlight in a movie that has a lot to say about the horrors of war.
Nolan actually requested these tiny edible soldiers for the flick because his vision for the iconic cyclops encounter was partially inspired by Francisco Goya’s disturbing mural of Saturn Devouring His Son. This mysterious piece is actually one of the artist’s infamous “Black Paintings,” which were found painted directly onto the walls of his old house near Madrid before a French baron ordered that the collection be transferred to canvas and assigned names for public viewing.
Details like these are what make me think that Nolan could pull off a genuinely scary horror picture if he came across the right idea. That being said, between the Fear Gas sequences in Batman Begins and Circe using body horror magic to transform men into pigs in The Odyssey, one might argue that he’s been preparing for such a task throughout his entire career.
The Odyssey is currently playing in theaters everywhere, though it’s definitely worth seeking out an IMAX screening if you can find one near you.
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