The Thing is a 2011 American science fiction horror film serving as a direct prequel to John Carpenter's 1982 film, which was an adaptation of the 1938 novella Who Goes There? by John W. Campbell. Directed by Matthijs van Heijningen Jr. and written by Eric Heisserer, it stars an ensemble cast led by Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Joel Edgerton, Ulrich Thomsen, Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje, and Eric Christian Olsen. It tells the story of the Norwegian team of scientists at a Norwegian Antarctic research station who discover a parasitic alien buried deep in the ice, realizing too late that it is still alive.
The Thing premiered on October 10, 2011, and was released on October 14, 2011. The film was a box-office bomb, grossing only $31.5 million worldwide on a budget of $38 million, and received mixed reviews from critics.
Plot
In the winter of 1982, members of the Norwegian research station "Thule" discover an alien spacecraft and a nearby alien body buried in the Antarctic ice. Dr. Sander Halvorson and his assistant Adam Finch recruit American paleontologist Kate Lloyd to investigate. Together with pilots Sam Carter, Derek Jameson, and crewman Griggs, they fly to Thule Station and meet station chief Edvard Wolner, along with his team of Juliette, Karl, Jonas, Olav, Henrik, Colin, Peder, Lars, and Lars' dog.
The body, encased in a block of ice, is transported to Thule Station. While the team celebrates their historic find, Jameson witnesses the Thing burst from the ice block. The team splits up to search for the alien and find Lars' dog dead. The alien drags Henrik into itself, spattering blood on Olav. The group kills the alien by igniting spilled fuel beneath it. An autopsy reveals that the alien's cells were copying Henrik's. Olav falls ill.
As Carter, Jameson, and Griggs are taking off in the helicopter to take Olav to a medical facility, Griggs transforms into a Thing and attacks Olav, causing the helicopter to crash in the mountains. Kate discovers dental fillings in a bloodied shower and alerts the team that the alien can assimilate and imitate its victims to hide among them. Edvard orders the team to drive to the closest base; however, Juliette and Kate want to prevent anyone from leaving. After going with Kate to get the keys to the vehicles, Juliette transforms and attempts to kill her. Kate escapes and the Juliette-Thing kills Karl. Lars kills the Juliette-Thing with a flamethrower and the team resolves to quarantine themselves until the threat is eliminated.
That night, Carter and Jameson stagger back from the crash. Suspected of being infected, they are kept in isolation. As the alien does not assimilate and imitate inorganic material (as Kate realized from the discarded dental fillings), Kate proposes everyone to be checked for dental fillings. The test clears all but Sander, Edvard, Adam, and Colin, as they have no metallic fillings.
Lars is abducted while going to fetch Carter and Jameson for testing. Carter and Jameson break into the main building, shooting Peder dead and puncturing his flamethrower tank, causing an explosion that knocks Edvard unconscious. When brought to the main room, Edvard violently transforms into the Thing, infects Jonas, kills Jameson, then assimilates Adam, becoming a two-headed thing. Kate burns Jonas and Jameson before they can fully transform, then she and Carter burn the Edvard/Adams-Thing before pursuing Sander, who had also been assimilated.
The Sander-Thing drives in a snowcat to the spaceship. The spacecraft suddenly activates, shifting and separating Kate and Carter, with Kate falling into the ship and Carter proceeding through the main hatch. Kate encounters the monstrous Sander-Thing and kills it with a grenade, which shuts down the ship's engines. Kate finds Carter and notices that he is missing his earring; Carter reaches for the wrong ear, confirming to her that he is the Thing in disguise. Kate burns the Carter-Thing, preventing its escape. Kate enters a second snowcat and prepares to drive to the Soviet base 50 miles away.
The next morning, Thule's helicopter and pilot Matias returns to the ruined station. Matias finds the burned remains of the two-headed Adams-Thing. Colin's corpse sits in the radio comms room, his wrists slit and a straight razor held in his hand. Lars, having been hiding in the building where Jameson and Carter attacked him, demands at gunpoint that Matias show his teeth. Lars' dog, thought dead, emerges and runs away. Realizing that the dog is a Thing, Lars orders Matias to give chase in the helicopter.
Cast Mary Elizabeth Winstead as Kate Lloyd, an American vertebrate paleontologist graduate from Columbia University: In order to be different from Kurt Russell as the 1982 film's protagonist, R.J. MacReady, Kate Lloyd was written to have similar traits to the character Ellen Ripley from the Alien film series. Joel Edgerton as Sam Carter, an American helicopter pilot and Vietnam War veteran running a supply operation to the bases. He and his two co-pilots are left in the dark as to why they are there and what is the mysterious thing the scientists have found. Ulrich Thomsen as Dr. Sander Halvorson, the arrogant Danish leader of alien research. He orders the team to obtain a sample of the recently discovered creature despite Kate's warnings. Norwegian actor Dennis Storhøi was initially hired to play the role, but was replaced by Thomsen after a week of filming. This required some digital effects work in post, as Thomsen's face was put on Storhoi's body for scenes that had already been shot with the other actor. Eric Christian Olsen as Adam Finch, a young Canadian scientist working as Dr. Sander's research assistant who invites Kate to the Norwegian base. Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje as Derek Jameson, an American helicopter co-pilot and also a Vietnam veteran who is Carter's best friend. Paul Braunstein as Griggs, a crew-chief member of the American helicopter transport team. Trond Espen Seim as Edvard Wolner, a notable Norwegian geologist who is the station commander and an old friend of Sander. Kim Bubbs as Juliette, a French geologist who is part of Edvard's team. Jørgen Langhelle as Lars, an ex-soldier who works as the dog keeper of the Norwegian base. He is the only member of the Norwegian base who does not speak English. Lars is also revealed to be the Norwegian shooter in the original film. Kristofer Hivju as Jonas, a nervous but friendly Norwegian polar ice researcher. Jan Gunnar Røise as Olav, a Norwegian Snowcat vehicle driver and guide. Stig Henrik Hoff as Peder, a Norwegian rifle-toting camp member who is Edvard's right-hand man. Jo Adrian Haavind as Henrik, another Norwegian base member who assists the alien research team. Carsten Bjørnlund as Karl, a Norwegian geologist also part of Edvard's team. Jonathan Lloyd Walker as Colin, an eccentric English radio operator. Ole Martin Aune Nilsen as Matias, the helicopter pilot of the Norwegian base currently in a mission to restock kerosene at Halley. Matias, like Lars, is revealed to be aboard the Norwegian helicopter in the 1982 film.
Production
Development "It's a really fascinating way to construct a story because we're doing it by autopsy, by examining very, very closely everything we know about the Norwegian camp and about the events that happened there from photos and video footage that's recovered, from a visit to the base, the director, producer and I have gone through it countless times marking, you know, there's a fire axe in the door, we have to account for that... we're having to reverse engineer it, so those details all matter to us 'cause it all has to make sense." — Eric Heisserer describing the process of creating a script that is consistent with the first film. After creating the Dawn of the Dead remake, producers Marc Abraham and Eric Newman began to look through the Universal Studios library to find new properties to work on. Upon finding John Carpenter's 1982 film The Thing, the two convinced Universal to create a prequel instead of a remake, as they felt that remaking Carpenter's film would be like "paint(ing) a moustache on the Mona Lisa". Eric Newman explained; "I'd be the first to say no one should ever try to do Jaws again and I certainly wouldn't want to see anyone remake The Exorcist... And we really felt the same way about The Thing. It's a great film. But once we realized there was a new story to tell, with the same characters and the same world, but from a very different point of view, we took it as a challenge. It's the story about the guys who are just ghosts in Carpenter's movie – they're already dead. But having Universal give us a chance to tell their story was irresistible."
In early 2009, Variety reported the launch of a project to film a prequel—possibly following MacReady's brother during the events leading up to the opening moments of the 1982 film—with Matthijs van Heijningen Jr. as director and Ronald D. Moore as writer. Matthijs van Heijningen Jr. became involved in the project when his first planned feature film, a sequel to the Dawn of the Dead remake, a zombie film taking place in Las Vegas written and produced by Zack Snyder, who directed the Dawn of the Dead remake, and co-produced by Abraham and Newman, called Army of the Dead, was cancelled by the studio three months before production began. Needing to start all over again, he asked his agent to see if there was a The Thing project in development, since Alien and The Thing are his favorite films. As a fan of Carpenter's film, he was interested in the project because, being European himself, he had always wondered what happened at the Norwegian camp. In March 2009, Moore described his script as a "companion piece" to Carpenter's film and "not a remake." "We're telling the story of the Norwegian camp that found the Thing before the Kurt Russell group did", he said.
Eric Heisserer was later hired to do a complete rewrite of Moore's script. While in Moore's original draft it was clear who would be the Thing, in rewrites it was decided the audience should not know who is infected in order to add to the sense of paranoia. Heisserer explained that in rewriting the script, it was necessary for him to research all the information that was revealed about the Norwegian camp from the first film, down to the smallest details, so that it could be incorporated into the prequel in order to create a consistent backstory. Heisserer also expressed part of the difficulty in writing the script was creating characters that were smart scientists, who, without copying what was done by characters in the first film, would come up with a test to determine who the thing is, yet still ultimately be outsmarted by the creature. The decision was made to name the film the same title as the first film, because the producers felt adding a "colon title" such as Exorcist II: The Heretic would be less reverential. In April 2010, it was revealed that Scott Frank had been hired to work uncredited on new dialogue for the film.