Despite a few photos surfacing last week, we have yet to see much from Matthijs van Heijningen Jr.’s The Thing prequel. That all changed during the New York Comic-Con panel for this upcoming nod to John Carpenter‘s classic remake. To be clear, this film takes place exactly 3 days before his 1982 masterpiece. During the panel, we were (twice) shown an extended teaser trailer with a decent amount of footage.
The cast of the panel featured Joel Edgerton, Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje and Eric Christian Olsen. The deep reverence to Carpenter’s tale was immediately conveyed. Everyone shared their personal story on what it meant to them and the producers even went on to explain how they re-constructed the Norwegian site down to every last detail. The most convincing comment came straight from Heijningen, who explained how he “really pushed hard for having practical monsters” and not the CG creations we see in nearly every summer blockbuster.
As for the actual footage shown, it started with Olsen’s character, a scientist, attempting to convince Mary Elizabeth Winstead‘s character to discover what was found at the Norwegian site. We then jump to the location as we see a massive ice block with “someTHING” inside and a drill begins to break through the top. As it gets deeper and deeper, we cut between footage of the crew exploring ice caverns and the surroundings. The crew engage in a folk song and then, as we amp up further, the action begins to kick in as that song is repeated and hauntingly played through the background. We only see quick glimpses of the creature, but it is enough to get excited about the direction they went with. There was some questionable CG backgrounds/environments during a particular scene of peril involving Winstead, so it will be interesting to see how that pans out. After a quick montage of action, it all ends with a heavy bass boom as The Thing title is revealed and we see “Coming 2011.”
Right after the preview, Alex Billington from FirstShowing.net and I recorded a quick video reaction, filmed with elegance by TFS’ own Raffi Asdourian. Check it out below.
The Thing hits theaters April 29th, 2011.
Are you looking forward to The Thing?