New Thing pre-writer?

After years of rumblings about a sequel, prequel, cable miniseries or remake to John Carpenter’s sci-fi masterpiece THE THING, it finally seems to be starting to congeal.

Universal and Strike Entertainment are raiding the gore store for a prequel to Carpenter’s icy terror tale (which was based on the short story “Who Goes There?”, also adapted into a 1951 movie), with commercial guy Matthijs Van Heijningen directing the tentacles and victims.

A script was already cranked out by “BATTLESTAR GALACTICA” overlord Ron Moore, but Bloody Disgusting have learned that a new writer, Eric Heisserer, is working on ways for humans to become grotesquely deformed. While hardly a household name (what screenwriter is?), Heisserer apparently also recently chipped at the remake of NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET.

The new film will be a “companion piece” to Carpenter’s sci-fi classic, focusing on the body-hopping shape-changing alien before it was discovered by MacReady and friends in Antarctica. Heisserer is reportedly doing a “from scratch” rewrite. Van Heijningen is also attached to producer Zack Snyder’s slow-moving zombie project ARMY OF THE DEAD.