The Thing Director Reveals The Sequel Plans Fans Never Got To See

The film holds a meager score of 34% from critics on Rotten Tomatoes, and its audience score of 42% isn’t much better. As a result, many criticized «The Thing» for being derivative of John Carpenter’s film, which was itself a remake of «The Thing from Another World,» and pointed out how beholden it was to its superior predecessor.

Matthijs van Heijningen Jr. says he now understands why fans failed to cotton to his take on the iconic science fiction horror film. «The Carpenter version was so good, and a lot of fans were almost offended by the prequel and didn’t see the necessity for a follow-up,» he said to Syfy Wire. «But now I fully understand that it was a bit early.»

All the same, if there ever was going to be a proper sequel to «The Thing,» an oil rig would be a great place to set it. For his part, though, John Carpenter was mum on his ideas for a potential sequel when he spoke to Fandom. «I just think there’s another bit of a story to tell there, which I’m not going to tell you about,» he said cryptically. Even if Carpenter hasn’t done much directing over the last couple of decades, if someone were to bring back «The Thing,» the beloved genre filmmaker would probably be the only one whom audiences might trust to actually get it right.