The issues that plagued the 2011 prequel to John Carpenter’s The Thing are by now well documented across the web. Long story short, Studio ADI whipped up incredible practical effects for the film that were ultimately tossed aside in favor of some pretty bad CGI, and well, pretty much nobody was happy about it. Because come on. It’s The Thing. CGI?!
But what you may not know is that way back in 2004, nearly a full decade prior to Universal making their prequel to The Thing, the Sci-Fi Channel was actively developing their own remake/prequel to Carpenter’s film. The network contacted Vincent Guastini (Silent Night, The Taking of Deborah Logan) to handle the creature designs, but alas, it never came to be.
Over on his Facebook page today, Guastini opened up about the experience, and he also shared the 4-minute long design pitch reel that he and his team came up with for Sci-Fi back in 2004. The video also features some designs that were conceptualized and pitched to Universal before Studio ADI took over the 2011 prequel; a film that was of course actually made.
Guastini explains:
Back in 2004 I got a call from the Sci Fi Channel to design and come up with creatures for a supposed version of THE THING. They loved our take on The Day Of The Triffids remake we were planning so they called us back for ideas for The Thing Prequel. It was with Mannsville Entertainment. It then went to David Foster, original producer on THE THING; he was blown away as well [and] he then directed me to Frank Darabount, who we dealt with briefly and he was like ‘love it thanks,’ but he said KNB would be doing it. So that was that. It later went back to Universal and Strike Ent. Frank was gone.
So way back in 2004 I had this presentation and later when it went back to Universal, we were the very first to get a call to have a pitch meeting. They wanted it to be a direct style and look to Carpenter’s at the time. Anyway long story short we revamped and redid and added more stuff to our 2004 presentation and went in guns blazing. They were so blown away they wanted to and did keep all this stuff for a re-write on the new 2011 film. I really thought we had it in the bag. After the new rewrite the film went green and all our efforts were put to the side and they went into a new direction. And [they] told us to pick up our stuff. (SAD HORN MUSIC HERE) ADI won the job. And they did some incredible work.
Check out Guastini’s pitch reel below, which includes drawings and even sculpts!
