The road to 1982’s classic was a long one.

As most of you reading this are well aware, John Carpenter’s The Thing is often referred to as a remake, and that’s because there was a 1951 film titled The Thing from Another World that had much the same general concept. The two films, in actuality, are vastly different adaptations of John W. Campbell Jr.’s short story Who Goes There?, published way back in 1938.

Nearly a decade before Carpenter came on board and worked his magic, producer Stuart Cohen saw the potential in re-adapting Who Goes There?, a long development process that dates back to the early ’70s. Cohen, who first read the novella as a kid, was hungry to bring it back to the screen, and Universal ended up buying the rights to produce his passion project.

As Cohen explained on his must-read blog The Original Fan, which is all about The Thing, he had met with Carpenter back in the ’70s to talk about directing a new adaptation of the story, but Universal was hesitant to hire an untested filmmaker. At the time, Carpenter hadn’t even yet directed Halloween, so Universal naturally thought it a huge risk to hand him the reigns.

And so, before Carpenter came on, Tobe Hooper was the studio’s first choice.

Tobe Hooper and creative collaborator Kim Henkel were coming fresh off the success of The Texas Chain Saw Massacre at the time, and they seemed a perfect fit to adapt Who Goes There?. However, quite the opposite turned out to be true. Their vision was vastly different than Cohen’s, who felt that Hooper and Henkel were missing the point of the source material.

Wrote Cohen on his aforementioned blog:

Their initial enthusiasm dimmed upon reading the novella. The issue of trust didn’t particularly interest them as an overall theme. They also worried about their ability to dramatize the mechanics of assimilation and didn’t want to be constrained by its use.

So what would Hooper have done with the film? Here’s what Cohen recalls of the script:

Rejecting the short story’s central premise, they chose instead to try to fashion something original that, in their words, would “address the larger picture.” Written quickly in order to avoid an impending writers strike, what I remember of the script was an attempt at a man versus monster epic set at the bottom of the world, a sort of Antarctica MOBY DICK with an Ahab-like character (I believe his name was The Captain) battling a large, but decidedly non-shape shifting creature.

Seemingly written as a tone poem with a stab at a Southern, Davis Grubb-like feel, the script was dense, humorless, almost impenetrable (the word John used for it when he later came on board was incomprehensible). Judged by all at the time to be something akin to a disaster, we agreed to part company.

In hindsight, everything worked out as it was meant to. After Alien became a hit at the box office in 1979, and with John Carpenter firmly established as a budding master of horror thanks to Halloween, Universal had a renewed interest in the project as the 1980s approached. Contrary to years prior, they were excited to bring Carpenter on board. And the rest is history.

On a related note, John Landis turned down the project in the ’70s!