Two actors, Mary Elizabeth Winstead and Joel Edgerton, are all set to star in The Thing. Universal’s next version of the shape-shifting alien who terrorizes a group of people in a remote facility.

I loved the other two versions. The 1982 John Carpenter-Kurt Russell cult movie is the most popular of the two. The 1951 The Thing from another World was directed by Howard Hawks.

Each version takes inspiration from Jack W. Campbell, Jr. 1938 short story, “Who Goes There?” published in Astounding. 

Matthijs Van Heijningen is directing the next movie from a script by Ronald D. Moore and Eric Heisserer. 

Winstead will play a Ph.D. candidate who joins a Norwegian research team in Antarctica after it discovers an alien ship in the ice. A trapped organism is freed from the ice. The thing begins a series of attacks.  Winstead is forced to team with a blue-collar mercenary helicopter pilot (Edgerton) to stop the rampage. 

Production is set to start March 15, 2010 in Toronto.