The Thing Prequel Yanked From Universal’s 2011 Schedule

Steve Barton |

Nov 13, 2010

Originally slated for an April 29, 2011 release, the prequel to the John Carpenter classic The Thing has been officially removed from Universal’s release slate for 2011 and is now listed to be released on a to-be-determined date. We’ll let you know as soon as we’re updated on the flick’s status.

Matthijs van Heijningen, Jr. is directing from a screenplay by Eric Heisserer and Ronald D. Moore. The cast includes Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Joel Edgerton, Jonathan Walker, Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje, Dennis Storhøi, Trond Espen Seim, Jørgen Langhelle, Eric Christian Olsen, Stig Henrik Hoff, Jan Gunnar Røise, Kristofer Hivju, and Jo Adrian Haavind.

Synopsis
“Antarctica: an extraordinary continent of awesome beauty. It is also home to an isolated outpost where a discovery full of scientific possibility becomes a mission of survival when an alien is unearthed by a crew of international scientists. The shape-shifting creature, accidentally unleashed at this marooned colony, has the ability to turn itself into a perfect replica of any living being. It can look just like you or me, but inside, it remains inhuman. In the thriller THE THING, paranoia spreads like an epidemic among a group of researchers as they’re infected, one by one, by a mystery from another planet. Paleontologist Kate Lloyd (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) has traveled to the desolate region for the expedition of her lifetime. Joining a Norwegian scientific team that has stumbled across an extraterrestrial ship buried in the ice, she discovers an organism that seems to have died in the crash eons ago. But it is about to wake up. When a simple experiment frees the alien from its frozen prison, Kate must join the crew’s pilot, Carter (Joel Edgerton), to keep it from killing them off one at a time. And in this vast, intense land, a parasite that can mimic anything it touches will pit human against human as it tries to survive and flourish.”