Editorial Staff
A year ago, John Carpenter said he’d like to do a continuation of his early ’80s monster hit The Thing, which of course saw Kurt Russell take an a creature from another place on a snowy landscape.
The Big Trouble in Little China (another film that’s supposed to be getting some kind of continuation) director teased the possibility of a follow-up at a Q&A at last weekend’s Texas Frightmare Weekend.
“I have been sworn to secrecy, okay, because there may be, I don’t know if there will be, there may be a ‘Thing 2.”, Creepy Catalog quoted the iconic filmmaker.
Carpenter has been talking about a potential Thing 2 for the better part of two decades, granted, telling Australia’s Empire Magazine 19 years ago that he had a great story for a continuation that “kicks off with the two characters left alive at the end of the first one. I’m interested in doing it. Unfortunately, I don’t think Universal is. Well, it’s interested in doing a sequel, but it’s not interested in having me direct it! You know, the studio will end up getting some commercials hotshot to do it, and that’ll be that. I don’t care. I’m certainly not going to beg. These people didn’t even get the original, despite the fact it’s my favourite movie of my own. Thing was that The Thing came out just after ET, which became a huge hit. The Thing’s message was the absolute opposite to E.T’s. Steven Spielberg said at the time that, “the audience needed an uplifting cry”. The guy was on the money. He’s an astute businessman that Spielberg. He had a huge hit on his hands, while we performed really poorly at the box office, so Universal then unceremoniously threw me off Firestarter, which I was prepping at the time. I could have done something really fucking good with that [sighs]. At least, though, The Thing has been really well received in its later years. That’s a pleasant finger up at Universal, and a comforting thought in my later years.”
In addition to the recent direct sequels to his Halloween over at Blumhouse, Radio Silence are collaborating with Carpenter on a sequel to Escape from New York (1981), that will see Kurt Russell reprise his role as Snake Plissken, while Dwayne Johnson is attached to a Big Trouble redo.
