Norwegians Actually American in Prequel to ‘The Thing’
by Britt Hayes
The prequel to John Carpenter’s The Thing is set to start lensing in March. Director Matthijs Van Heijningen will direct from a script by Eric Heisserer (A Nightmare on Elm Street remake), for Universal Pictures and Strike Entertainment. The plot of this script, according to Bloody-Disgusting:
An alien spaceship is discovered far beneath the ice near a remote Antarctica outpost. We’re told that a group of scientists decide to thaw out a creature from inside that kicks off the mayhem at the camp.
From everything we’ve gathered, this seems to be the telling of the tale from the Norwegian point of view, just before the original film takes place. You can read my previous thoughts on the matter here. Over on the Spoiler TV site, they’ve got a very (what else?) spoilery breakdown of the cast of characters. I’d advise you to keep away from the cast breakdown unless you want to be spoiled, but here’s what I will tell you:
The main character seems to be named Kate Lloyd, and she’s an American Paleontologist, just of out college.
The doctor leading the Norwegians is named Sander Halvorson. At the end of his description it says “actor must be able to read and speak some Norwegian.” Already, they don’t really care to cast Norwegians. I suppose they’ll just get the prettiest people they can find, and maybe one dude with red hair and a beard, and call it a day.
The third lead is Sam Carter, a helicopter pilot (uh oh, I think we know what happens to Sam!) who is described as “rugged”, “handsome”, and “blue collar”. Someone should tell them that the Brawny Man is just a guy painted on the paper towel package.
The supporting characters include a couple more Norwegians (Edvard Wolner and Jonas – I assume he dies quickly because he doesn’t get a last name. Or he’s a pop star) and these guys:
Adam Goodman – A friend of Kate’s, and pretty much described as an opportunistic douche bag.
Derek Jameson – Token black dude.
Juliette – French chick who speaks Norwegian. She doesn’t get a last name either. Maybe they couldn’t think of anything Frenchy.
Colin – Plays poker with Jonas. The casting note says “Submit British, East Indian, Spanish, Asian, etc., scientist types.” Basically they want a skinny dude with glasses who’s cute in that dorky way, and they can’t have just one black person or else they look cliché, so they need another ethnicity to break up all the whiteness.
This all sounds very run of the mill, especially for a rehash. They’ll probably go with relative unknowns or maybe some shitty actor who the director swears he “saw some great potential in” as if the actor had been shitty his whole career, just waiting for the prequel to The Thing to come along. There will be boobs. There will be sex. There will be pot smoking (I bet you $50. Let’s do this.) Oh, and there will be CGI. Count on it.
