50 Fun Facts About The Thing

Who directed the 1982 film The Thing?

He was reluctant to take the job, thinking Howard Hawks's 1951 version would be hard to surpass.

The Thing is based on which 1938 novella?

John W. Campbell Jr. wrote it under the pen name Don A. Stuart; a longer version titled Frozen Hell surfaced in 2018.

Who wrote the screenplay for the 1982 film?

The son of actor Burt Lancaster, he had also written The Bad News Bears.

Kurt Russell's R. J. MacReady has what job at the station?

The only female presence in the film is the voice of his chess computer.

Wilford Brimley plays Blair, who holds what role at the outpost?

His computer simulation of the alien's spread drives him to sabotage the whole camp.

Keith David plays Childs, the station's what?

He and MacReady are the last two men standing at the end.

Which character is the station's cook, played by T. K. Carter?

He roller-skates around the base and vanishes in the finale.

Which character is the radio operator, played by Thomas Waites?

The odd nickname is never explained in the film.

Donald Moffat's Garry holds which position?

He hands over his gun and his authority to MacReady when suspicion falls on him.

Richard Masur's Clark has what job, which makes him an early suspect?

He spent time alone with the infected sled dog before it revealed itself.

How does the film open?

The Norwegians are trying to kill the dog, which the Americans mistake for madness.

What do MacReady and Copper find among the ruins of the Norwegian camp?

They also bring back videotapes showing the Norwegians digging something out of the ice.

Where does the sled dog first reveal its true nature?

It metamorphoses and absorbs several of the station's dogs before being torched.

What does Blair do after calculating how fast the alien could infect the world?

The others lock him in the tool shed, which turns out to be a mistake.

What happens when the doctor tries to defibrillate a crew member who seems dead of a heart attack?

The scene is the film's most notorious effect and was built by Rob Bottin's team.

In the blood test scene, whose blood recoils from the heated wire?

The exposed Palmer-Thing transforms and Windows dies in the chaos.

What has Blair been secretly building under the tool shed?

He assembled it from vehicle components, and the survivors blow it up.

How does the 1982 film end?

Bill Lancaster's original ending had both men turn into the Thing; Carpenter chose the ambiguous freeze instead.

Who composed the score for the 1982 film?

Carpenter wanted a European approach, though the result sounds a lot like his own synth work.

Who created the film's creature effects?

$1.5 million of the $15 million budget went on his work.

During filming, the 21-year-old effects chief was hospitalized for what?

He had been working seven days a week for over a year.

Which effects artist stepped in to build the Dog-Thing and refused any credit?

He insisted the young effects chief deserved sole credit.

The sled dog was played by an uncredited animal named what?

The wolf-dog's eerie stillness came from a trainer standing just off camera.

Besides refrigerated Los Angeles sets, the film shot in Juneau, Alaska, and which Canadian town?

Principal photography began on 24 August 1981 in Juneau and lasted about twelve weeks.

What was the 1982 film's budget?

It grossed only $19.6 million in theatres, the 42nd biggest film of the year.

Roughly how much did The Thing gross in its 1982 theatrical run?

It ranked only 42nd for the year, opening two weeks after E.T. and the same day as Blade Runner.

The Thing was released in the US on 25 June 1982 by which studio?

The studio changed the advertising and taglines when audiences recoiled.

Which optimistic alien film, released two weeks earlier, is often blamed for The Thing's poor reception?

Audiences wanted friendly visitors, not a shape-shifting parasite.

Which title did Carpenter try to switch to at the last minute?

The novella's title would have distanced it from the 1951 film.

How was the film received on release?

It has since been reappraised as one of the best horror films ever made and joined the National Film Registry in 2025.

In what year was the 1982 film selected for the US National Film Registry?

The 1951 film had been selected back in 2001.

The screenwriter said the novella's crew of how many was too large for audiences to follow?

The film trims the station down to twelve men.

The 1951 film The Thing from Another World was officially directed by whom?

Producer Howard Hawks is widely believed to have done much of the directing.

Who played the monster in the 1951 film, years before finding fame as Marshal Dillon in Gunsmoke?

The 6-foot-7 actor was covered in makeup as a humanoid vegetable.

The scientists in the 1951 film conclude that the creature is an advanced form of what?

The 'intellectual carrot' is one reason Carpenter wanted to go back to the shape-shifter of the novella.

Unlike the 1982 film, the 1951 version is set at an outpost in which region?

The body is hauled back to the base in a block of ice, and the film ends with the warning to keep watching the skies.

The 1951 film ends with a reporter's famous warning to do what?

The line became a catchphrase for 1950s alien-invasion cinema.

The 2011 film The Thing is set where?

It ends with the dog fleeing and a Norwegian helicopter giving chase, feeding into the 1982 opening.

Who leads the cast of the 2011 prequel as paleontologist Kate Lloyd?

Joel Edgerton and Ulrich Thomsen co-star under director Matthijs van Heijningen Jr.

What happened to most of the 2011 film's practical creature effects?

The decision angered fans who prized the original's hand-made monsters.

The 2011 prequel cost $38m and grossed roughly how much worldwide?

It opened on 14 October 2011 and lost money, like the film it was prequel to.

In Campbell's novella, how long ago had the alien ship crashed in the Antarctic ice?

It first appeared in the August 1938 issue of Astounding Science Fiction.

Who provides the only female voice in the 1982 film, as MacReady's chess computer?

Barbeau was Carpenter's wife at the time; the crew themselves appear in a recovered photo of the Norwegian team.

Which director did Universal first assign to the project in the 1970s because he was under contract?

Hooper and Kim Henkel's draft was set partly underwater; the success of Alien later revived the project.

Which comedians auditioned for stoner mechanic Palmer before David Clennon won the role?

Effects chief Rob Bottin also lobbied to play Palmer, but his workload made it impossible.

Why is Keith David's left hand hidden for the first half of the film?

He wore a surgical glove under a black glove painted to match his skin tone.

Why did Universal refuse the team's wish to shoot The Thing in black-and-white?

Instead Dean Cundey muted the palette, painting sets and props grey and letting the lighting supply the colour.

Which 1984 film did Carpenter lose the chance to direct because of The Thing's poor box office?

Universal bought him out of his multi-film contract, and he did not discuss the failure openly until 1985.

Which publisher put out four comic book sequels starring MacReady, starting in December 1991?

Chuck Pfarrer's first two-parter picks up 24 hours after the film, and Carpenter called it a worthy sequel idea.

Carpenter groups The Thing with two later films under what name?

Prince of Darkness (1987) and In the Mouth of Madness (1994) complete the set, all shaped by his love of Lovecraft.