The L.A. Times reports that THE THING, the prequel to to the 1982 John Carpenter version, has been pulled from its previously announced April 29th, 2011 release date by Universal Pictures. At present, the film has no release scheduled.
The reason, according the studio is that THE THING is “not ready”, and that they are eager to move FAST FIVE, the fourth FAST & FURIOUS sequel from its original June 10th date into the Spring opening.
It’s unknown what might be the cause of the delay for the film, helmed by first-time director Matthijs van Heijningen Jr. Ownership of Universal Pictures is passing from GE to the new owner, Comcast. Possibly the studio heads are playing it safe during this transition period.
Official Description:
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.
THE THING serves as a prelude to John Carpenter’s classic 1982 film of the same name.