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The company that designed the practical creature effects for The Thing have posted a video on YouTube showing the creation and execution of their work. Surprisingly, much of the real FX look like the CG work that was seen in the final movie, which begs the question: why did Universal CG The Thing's monster effects?

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Universal Studios Home Entertainment is dropping their 2011 The Thing prequel on January 31, 2012. In addition to the movie both the DVD and Blu-ray will carry the following bonus features:

• Deleted/extended scenes.
• Audio commentary track with director Matthijs van Heijningen and producer Eric Newman.
• Two featurettes examining the making of the movie: "Fire & Ice" - in a frigid environment and against a relentless foe, there's only one hope: Fire. Join the cast as they train with flame-throwers, battle wild fires on-set and get schooled in the importance of understanding fire's unpredictable personality; "The Thing Evolves" - profiling key behind-the-scenes stories of the film from inception to completion, including pieces entitled "The Legacy," "The Inspiration" and "The Evolution."

The Blu-ray will also carry an UltraViolet digital copy of the movie.

The Thing DVD will carry a suggested retail price of $29.98 while the Blu-ray/DVD combo will list for $34.98. [Full story]

In the land of Russia, this is the trailer that they're watching for The Thing. For those of us in the west that have watched the trailers to date, this one has got a couple of new looks at the creature. We've included the Russian poster too.

The first TV commercial for The Thing prequel has arrived, and it features some new, shadowy looks of the monster.

If you're an old school fan of the original 1982 movie, take a look at the first trailer for Universal's prequel to The Thing and see if it gives you that same kind of vibe. If you're new to the idea of a shape-changing alien monster trapped in the Antarctic, does this trailer do it for you?

We finally have a real teaser poster for Universal's prequel to The Thing which is strangely enough titled The Thing. It doesn't look like the studio is going to alter the title to differ from the 1982 movie of the same name, which, in a stranger way, makes sense if you think about it from the perspective of the alien lifeform. Imitation.

The Thing prequel now has a new release date: October 14, 2011, placing it well within the Halloween horror season.

Universal has now scrapped its plans to release The Thing prequel on April 29, 2010. However, instead of slotting a new release date for the film, the studio has left the release of the movie TBD.

Asking why the studio decided to delay the release indefinitely, a Universal spokesperson told The Los Angeles Times that the picture was not yet ready. In the absence of the monster movie, the studio has bumped up the release for Fast Five to The Thing's former opening day.

Universal has scheduled The Thing prequel for release on April 29, 2011. Usually this position is taken by movies that want to capture the pre-summer launch wave of interest from audiences. In past years the late April release slot has worked well for such movies as The Matrix but the April release window can also hurt movies that don't have large marketing and advertising budgets.

Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje (Mr. Eko in ABC's Lost, Heavy Duty in last summer's G.I. Joe movie) has been cast in The Thing in the role of Derek, one of the Americans that get sent to the Norweigian base.

That photo you see over on the left is supposedly the first look at the Norwegian camp we'll see in The Thing prequel. A reader of Slashfilm sent it in to the site. The movie is currently filming exterior scenes somewhere in Toronto, though we would like to know where the crew got all that snow from.

Comparisons to the exterior of the American research base from Carpenter's 1982 film can also be compared to the Norwegian camp photo on /film's write-up.

Bloody Disgusting (via Variety) reports that the creature effects company Amalgamated Dynamics is creating the monsters we'll see in The Thing prequel. AD made the extraterrestrials we saw in Alien 3, Alien Resurrection and Alien vs. Predator, the graboids from Tremors, Jack Nicholson's Wolf and many other films.

Mary Elizabeth Winstead and Joel Edgerton are the first two announced cast members to star in The Thing prequel. The Hollywood Reporter's Heat Vision blog reports that Winstead will play a Ph.D candidate who joins the Norwegian camp after they discover the crashed alien vessel in the Antarctic ice. Edgerton is labeled as a "blue-collar mercenary helicopter pilot".

Winstead played Bruce Willis' daughter in Live Free and Die Hard. She will also be seen this summer in Universal's upcoming Scott Pilgrim vs. the World. Edgerton is likely best known for his brief role in the latter two Star Wars prequels, Attack of the Clones and Revenge of the Sith, where he played a young Owen Lars.

The first day of filming is scheduled for March 15.

Spoiler TV has published a breakdown of most of the supporting characters left to be cast in the upcoming Thing movie. There's a lot of info that can be mined from the breakdown notes including the fates of several of the characters. What's also important to note is that the film's premise was also given in the breakdown pages and it ends all speculation that the second Thing movie won't be a prequel to the events seen in the 1982 movie. An explanation as to how the original creature got out of its tomb of ice is contained in the details.

Follow the link to read the character breakdowns but beware of spoilers.

Production Weekly mentions that filming on The Thing prequel will begin in March 2010 and run through to June. The production is scheduled to shoot in Toronto.