Prequels are always slightly dodgy prospects. People may say they’d like to see the events that led up to a movie they loved, but all too often they’re not so impressed when they find out. After all, Star Wars fans spent two decades pondering how Anakin Skywalker became Darth Vader and have passed the last 10 years bitching about the films that showed them exactly how it happened.
Now comes news that the prequel to The Thing is revving up for for a March shoot date (as announced by a Production Weekly tweet) and will continue filming until June. 28 years on from John Carpenter’s movie (which was itself as remake of a 1951 film), the movie will deal with the events before Kurt Russell turned up at the Antacrtic research station, and will see the crew of the station terrorised by a shape-shifting alien that decimates their ranks.
The one thing that gives us hope this movie will be alright is that Ronald D. Moore is on scripting duties. He’s the man behind the Battlestar Galactica revamp and has also written/produced the likes of Star Trek: TNG and two of the Next Generation Star Trek movies, as well as getting a story credit on Mission: Impossible II. Unfortunately though he won’t be directing, as that honour has gone to commercials helmer Matthis can Heijningen Jr. His often effects filled adverts are pretty good, although he’s yet to make a feature film, so on that score he’s a bit of an unknown quantity.
So what do you think? Is a Thing prequel a good idea or not?