With Matthijs van Heijningen Jr.’s prequel to John Carpenter’s legendary The Thing reaching DVD, the director made a few press rounds and discussed the movie (he, like the rest of us, was disappointed with the unoriginal title) as well as the fate of future projects.
A while back, van Heijningen was rumored to be circling Army of the Dead, an extension of Zack Snyder’s 2004 Dawn of the Dead reboot that reportedly was going to feature a father infiltrating a zombie-infested Las Vegas in order to rescue his daughter. Tremendous concept, but as you might have guessed, turning Sin City into a buffet of brain-eaters was more expensive than some producers were willing to go.
“I don’t know if that’s going to happen – it was really expensive, because it was going to have to shoot in Las Vegas”, van Heijningen Jr. told Moviehole while out promoting The Thing (2011). Warner Bros. still reportedly holds the rights to the project, but it appears to be mired in pre-production hell as Snyder bangs away on the studio’s Superman reboot and van Heijningen contemplates his next move.
The Thing director also confirmed that a third Thing movie, should it happen, wouldn’t interest him. “I’m not sure whether they’re doing another Thing movie, to be honest. [If they do] I’m staying away from it. I just want to do something different,” he told the site.
So, a couple of confirmations by way of denials. Bank on van Heijningen scoring a new gig soon. And as for Army, I wouldn’t give up on it just yet, zombie fans. There’s a very good reason that franchise has been around in various forms for multiple decades. It’s damn near impossible to kill.
