Continuing This John Carpenter Classic Movie As A Sequel Show Sounds Genius

Warning: Contains SPOILERS for The Thing!

Summary A sequel to John Carpenter's classic film may have been in the works, focusing on a global scale invasion by The Thing.

Despite plans for a sequel show, studios did not show interest, similar to past failed attempts at continuing The Thing franchise.

A canceled miniseries may have had a similar storyline, exploring the aftermath of the original film's ambiguous ending.

The Thing is one of the best of John Carpenter's classic movies, and making a sequel show to it sounds genius. It has been over four decades since the beloved 1982 sci-fi horror film was released, and despite the movie only growing in popularity, a sequel still hasn't been made. A The Thing prequel was released in 2011, with it following the other Arctic base that is mentioned in the film, but The Thing's cliffhanger ending has never been truly resolved. However, it turns out that there may have been a unique plan to continue The Thing franchise.

ScreenRant is at San Dieco Comic-Con 2024, catching up on all the newest movie and TV show announcements, including a surprise reveal about The Thing franchise's history. SDCC 2024's big The Thing reveal came thanks to Collider's Producers on Producers panel at the expo, with The Strangers producer Roy Lee explaining that he and The Shawshank Redemption director Frank Darabont had once worked on a The Thing sequel show. Sadly, the show never ended up getting made. Here are Roy Lee's full comments from SDCC 2024:

“I was with Frank Darabont after he’d done The Walking Dead. We were working on a sequel series for The Thing, which was picking up in the present day after the events of The Thing actually happened. It was done as a series, and he wanted to do it like The Walking Dead and turn it into a thing set in the U.S., but we never got it off the ground. We got a script written, but the studio hated it.”

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The Thing Sequel Show Would Be The Best Way To Continue The Story

It Works Better Than A Movie

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If The Thing's story were to be continued, a sequel TV series would be the best way to continue the story. At the end of the original The Thing, it is left ambiguous as to if one of the two survivors has been replicated by the titular shapeshifting alien. However, the film had previously set up the threat that The Thing could escape the Arctic wasteland and make it back to human civilization, meaning that it could assimilate all of Earth in a terrifyingly short time.

Due to this story setup, a sequel to The Thing would have to be on a much larger scale than the original movie. Thus, the longer running time of a TV show is perfect for a continuation. A The Thing TV show would allow the story to explore how Earth as a whole responds to The Thing's invasion, highlighting the first contact with civilization, the government's attempts to control The Thing's spread, and the alien's ever-increasing grasp on the world. Instead of focusing on The Thing fighting a few scientists again, the show would focus on The Thing fighting Earth.

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What The Thing Sequel Show Would Have Been About

Is It The Same As The Canceled Miniseries?

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Roy Lee did not elaborate on what his The Thing sequel show would have been about while speaking about it at SDCC 2024. However, there were plans for a four-part The Thing miniseries that didn't come to fruition, with Frank Darabont producing it and The Walking Dead's David Leslie Johnson-McGoldrick writing it. While there isn't a confirmed connection between the two shows, the fact that Frank Darabont worked on both of them means that the story could have been very similar.

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The four-part The Thing miniseries would have seen a group of Russians recover the bodies of The Thing's two survivors, MacReady and Childs. They bring these two bodies, as well as what is left of The Thing, away from the arctic base, with the series then jumping 23 years into the future and exploring The Thing's attempts to escape and take over humanity. This story seems like a logical extension of The Thing's controversial ending, with it also having the potential to keep the original movie's ending vague.

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Why The Thing Sequel Never Happened

They've Had A Troubled Past

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Although there have constantly been talks of The Thing sequels since the original's release, nothing has ever come to fruition. A movie sequel to The Thing has been talked about at various points, although Universal's first attempts to make a sequel was halted by the critical and commercial disappointment of the 2011 The Thing prequel. However, Universal and Blumhouse announced that they were developing a sequel to The Thing in 2020, with John Carpenter teasing The Thing 2 as recently as 2023.

As for Roy Lee's aforementioned The Thing sequel series, the producer went on at SDCC 2024 to say that, despite a script being written, studios just weren't interested. It is known that the four-part The Thing miniseries was passed on in favor of a The Thing movie sequel that never happened, and while the relationship between the two shows is a bit ambiguous, it is possible that Lee's version suffered the same fate as well. Although The Thing sequels have had a troubled history, one will inevitably happen someday.