Hey folks, Harry here... the last several days I've been getting emails coming left and right regarding John Carpenter and THE THING 2. It's popped up on a ton of different websites. Today - FOX NEWS apparently ran with the story - and when the Neo-Fascists begin rapping about John Carpenter, I figured it was time to clear it up. First, here's what I got...
Harry,
Just announced on Fox News that John Carpenter has stared work on the sequel to one of the best Horror / Sci-Fi films of the 80's - THE THING. Now, when I met John Carpenter in Atlanta for Dragon Con he stated that he absolutely loved the Dark Horse comic book sequel (released in the Mid Nineties) and was very interested in making the film if he got the funding. Having been a big fan of the original, the Dark Horse comic was an extremely well put together sequel. The events in the comic book follow MacReady & Childs sojourn out of the camp to try to find another arctic station. They were still unsure wether or not either of them were infected with the virus... until they are picked up by a US nuclear submarine and the horror starts again. It has some elements of Cameron's Aliens in it (Marines going into the station where the first movie's action unraveled) but all in all a great read. Considering that Kurt Russell and Keith David (two John Carpenter staples) have aged extremely gracefully, it would be plausible that they could reprise their roles. We will just have to see.
Sincerely
Pickman's Model
Ok, so that's what I got. Then I called up John to see what he was up to. Turns out that the story is COMPLETELY FALSE. John is not directing THE THING 2. There is no THE THING 2 with him doing it. He told me that the last thing he heard was that Universal was looking to make a SCI FI CHANNEL Miniseries - and apparently he wasn't doing anything on that.
So what is John up to? Oh, he's playing around with a few things, but nothing that he's ready to start talking about yet. So let it be known, this THING 2 rumor is total bollocks!
Oh, and I don't know if I ever wrote about this, but YEARS ago... George Clooney was looking at doing a follow-up to his LIVE - Television Production of FAIL-SAFE by doing a LIVE - Television version of the original THE THING FROM ANOTHER WORLD - all based upon John W Campbell's original WHO GOES THERE. Not real sure what happened to that, kinda wish it'd happen. I liked that Live FAIL SAFE!
