Universal Pictures Remaking John Carpenter's The Thing

Strike Entertainment and Universal Pictures will remake John Carpenter's horror classic The Thing, according to Variety.

The script will be written by Battlestar Galactica executive producer Ronald D. Moore. The 1982 original dealt with a shape-shifting creature from outer space that terrorizes researchers at an Antarctic facility.

Carpenter's film continued the storyline of the Howard Hawks-directed The Thing From Another World. That 1951 film starred James Arness as an alien monster that wiped out workers at an Army radar station.

Carpenter's film opened with a team arriving to find that encampment has been wiped out. The alien moved from the body of one team member to another, so it was never quite clear who the villain was.

Both pictures were based on the John W. Campbell Jr. 1938 short story Who Goes There?

The producers said they consider the new film to be more "a companion piece" to the Carpenter film than a note-for-note remake.