John Carpenter's The Thing is a true classic. Great story, great effects and just chock full of greatness. One of my favourite films of all time. Then there is the Battlestar Galactica reboot by Ronald D Moore. That was a brilliant reimagination of a camp 70s show. The new version was dark, deep and cool.
Put the two together and that is potential cinema gold. That was what was happening. Moore had written the script for a prequel to JCs The Thing. However, Hollywood being Hollywood this looks as if it has all changed.
Filmstalker and Bloody Disgusting have posted the news that the script was heading for a rewrite by Eric Heisserer. He is the chap who has written the script for the Nightmare on Elm Street reboot.
Now Heisserer has confirmed this on his own blog:
Yes, Matthijs and I are hard at work with the very smart team at Strike on
the prequel. We are all so much in love with Carpenter’s film, so protective of
it, we’re doing all we can to avoid stepping on its toes. I jumped at this job
because I hold the Carpenter adaptation to very high standards, and I knew it
would be a challenge to create a comparable companion piece. Sort of a “Nobody
better screw this up, especially me” mentality. Lucky for me, the people at
Strike and the director have the same standards.
This is a “from scratch” rewrite assignment for the most part, as was
my work on A Nightmare on Elm Street. I can’t say any more on that. I have the
highest respect for both Ron Moore and Wesley Strick.
I'm not sure what to make of this news. I was really excited to hear that Moore had turned in his script for the prequel (all about what happened at the Norwegian camp). I enjoyed BSG so thought he was the right man for the job. Now this "from scratch" rewrite comes out of nowhere. I can't really comment on Hesserer's work so I have no idea whether he will be good or bad. Glad that he says he wants to avoid stepping on any toes.
The fact that the studio has asked for the rewrite does worry me though. Unless the script is an absolute stinker the trend for studio's doing this is usually when the script is intelligent, cool and breaks the mold. Studio gets scared and asks for a rewrite to make it into a generic sci-fi slasher kind of deal.
That is just my opinion of course. What do you think about the rewrite news? What does this mean for the film?
Leave a comment on this post below.
The excellent image above is from the Guinea Pig Theatre.
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