The prequel to director
John Carpenter's The Thing is currently shooting in Toronto from a script by
Battlestar Galactica writer
Ronald D. Moore, with director
Matthijs van Heijningen Jr. at the helm. In a recent interview with
AICN, Australian actor
Joel Edgerton) (
Smokin' Aces; "Owen Lars" to
Star Wars fans), who plays a helicopter pilot similar to
Kurt Russell's R.J. MacReady, revealed an interest bit of trivia about and said that there will be plenty of nods to Carpenter's 1982 movie for fans to pick up on.
"God, I feel like I’m the luckiest guy in the world to be starring in a remake of The Thing and I’ve got just as much kind of nerves for approaching the part as you guys could imagine and you guys would, because I’m such a huge fan of the original movie, or Carpenter’s film. I haven’t seen the other film.
I think what’s going on here is a really cool take and I think what Matthijs [Van Heijningen Jr.] and the guys who scripted it and Universal has done is a really cool idea; rather than doing a remake to do a prequel of sorts that is going to tell the story of what happened to the Norwegian base. The story is pretty original and I think what I can tell you that the design is really kind of true to the original.
In the production offices here at Toronto they brought some on set photos, behind the scenes photos from the Carpenter film because... I don’t know if you know that when they shot the original, they had the American base built and then they built off the back of it the Norwegian base.
You never saw the back of the American base in the film. So they actually built the two sets back to back. I think what’s going to be cool for the fans of the original film is that you are going to see the pieces of the puzzle come together that simply created the mystery in Carpenter’s film, you know, like the action and gore and the guy who slit his own throat with the cutthroat razor and all of that stuff. This film will stand-alone as it’s own entity, but it will also be a cool thing for anyone who loved the Carpenter film. 'Oh, that’s how that happened!' and 'That’s how that happened!'"
Edgerton went on to say that, while the new movie will be respectful of Carpenter's vision, it will still be an original take on the concept.
Yeah, and I think that’s what these guys are aiming for. They are certainly not treating it lightly, but at the same time they are moving forward with their own vision and their own take on it and I think what hopefully will be the result is the best of both worlds. I don’t know, just a tribute to what’s gone and a real excellent incorporation of where movies has come to in terms of technology."