TV
Did You Know Syfy Almost Made a Sequel Miniseries to ‘The Thing’ Back in 2005?!
“We open with footage from the Carpenter movie – the last scene…”
John Carpenter’s The Thing, which ended on a cliffhanger that fans still hotly debate to this day, was followed up by comic books and even a video game, but did you know that Syfy had actually planned on continuing the story with a mini-series back in 2005, six years before Carpenter’s film got the prequel/remake treatment with 2011’s The Thing?!
The Instagram fan account The Thing Collector Community just shared a couple script pages from the abandoned project this week, and they laid out the basic gist of the story.
“Back in 2005 SyFy network planned a four-hour Television Mini-Series sequel to The Thing to be called .. wait for it… “Return of The Thing“. It was written by David Leslie Johnson,” they detail. “David is busy to this day (wrote the upcoming Aquaman). The producer was to be Frank Darabont (The Green Mile).”
They continue, “It was never produced… why? I don’t know. Doesn’t seem to be any clear reason. Syfy channel was pretty big at the time. My digging hasn’t found a clear reason. If anyone has extra info…. feel free to add to the story.”
The Wiki page for The Thing reveals more details about the planned mini-series, which was going to pick up right after the events of Carpenter’s film and then jump ahead in time.
“The story follows a Russian team who recover the corpses of MacReady and Childs, and remnants of the Thing. The story moves forward 23 years, where the Thing escapes in New Mexico, and follows the attempts at containment.”
You can check out some of Johnson’s script pages below.
AMC announced today it has renewed Anne Rice’s Interview with the Vampire for a fourth season, and it’s officially titled Anne Rice’s Queen of the Damned.
The news was announced during its Comic-Con International Hall H panel for The Vampire Lestat featuring series executive producers Mark Johnson and Hannah Moscovitch and castmates Jacob Anderson, Assad Zaman, Eric Bogosian and Sheila Atim.
Based on the beloved novel, Anne Rice’s Queen of the Damned will be executive produced and showrun by Moscovitch, along with executive producers Johnson and Rolin Jones.
An accomplished writer and playwright, Moscovitch was a writer on the first two seasons of Interview with the Vampire and an executive producer on The Vampire Lestat, for which she specifically wrote the “Akasha” and “Gabriella” characters.
“In The Vampire Lestat, Mark, Rolin, Hannah and this extraordinary cast delivered an unforgettable season filled with propulsive storytelling that captivated the passionate and engaged fans of this franchise,” said Dan McDermott, Chief Content Officer of AMC Global Media and President of AMC Studios. “We can’t wait to continue the journey with Queen of the Damned, one of the most iconic stories in Anne Rice’s mythology, and watch our established and beloved characters confront Akasha with their world, and ours, very much hanging in the balance.”
The Vampire Lestat stars Sam Reid, Anderson, Zaman, Bogosian, Atim, Delainey Hayles and Jennifer Ehle and is executive produced by award-winning producer Johnson, creator, writer and showrunner Jones, Moscovitch, along with Christopher Rice and the late Anne Rice.
In season three, Lestat goes on an electric multi-city tour while being haunted by “muses” from his wild and rebellious past. As his band’s popularity and star power rise, so does Lestat’s influence over vampires and humans alike, leaving others to contend with Lestat’s power in the face of the Great Conversion, an unnatural surge in the vampire population.
He awakens Akasha (Sheila Atim), the eponymous character of season four. Watch the teaser below.
All hail your new queen.
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