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Eric Heisserer, the fellow doing a rewrite of The Thing prequel screenplay, spoke with Bloody Disgusting and talked about the proposed movie's story elements, eliminating some of the mystery surrounding the story but also not wishing to answer yes or no to other questions.. For example, those rumors that there's a character in Heisserer's screenplay that is supposed to be the brother of Kurt Russell's character from the 1982 movie? "That was certainly a character in Ronald Moore's draft," Heisserer said. "I can't comment on whether or not we're going to keep that going forward."

Heisserer said that he is looking very closely at the scenes in Carpenter's Thing that take place in the Norwegian base and working backward to create what happens in his screenplay. "It’s a really fascinating way to construct a story because were doing it by autopsy, by examining very, very closely everything we know about the Norwegian camp and about the events that happened there from photos and video footage that’s recovered,” he told the site, "from a visit to the base, the director, producer and I have gone through it countless times marking, you know, there’s a fire axe in the door, we have to account for that…were having to reverse engineer it, so those details all matter to us ‘cause it all has to make sense."

Bloody Disgusting broke the news that Eric Heisserer has been hired by Strike Entertainment to perform a rewrite to The Thing prequel screenplay. Heissere's IMDb profile lists him as co-writer on the Nightmare on Elm Street remake and before that on a kids show. However, he does have some published horror work as he mentions writing a zombie comic story on his blog.

And his blog is precisely where Heisserer confirmed Bloody Disgusting's scoop. "Yes, Matthijs and I are hard at work with the very smart team at Strike on the prequel," writes Heisserer. "We are all so much in love with Carpenter’s film, so protective of it, we’re doing all we can to avoid stepping on its toes. I jumped at this job because I hold the Carpenter adaptation to very high standards, and I knew it would be a challenge to create a comparable companion piece. Sort of a 'Nobody better screw this up, especially me; mentality. Lucky for me, the people at Strike and the director have the same standards.

"This is a 'from scratch' rewrite assignment for the most part, as was my work on A Nightmare on Elm Street. I can’t say any more on that. I have the highest respect for both Ron Moore and Wesley Strick."

While attending a special screening of the finale of Battlestar Galactica, that show's executive producer and head writer -- who also happens to be the screenwriter on the Thing sequel screenplay currently in development -- spoke about his work on the project.

"I did my drafts," said writer Ronald D. Moore to IGN at the event. "They were happy. They have a director and, you know, it's the feature world and I'm not the key player so we just wait and see if they're going to greenlight it or not. I'm not the chef. I'm the short-order cook who comes in and does my thing and we'll see what they want to serve."

Moore was also able to illuminate some clarification on his proposed story and how it fits into the Thing universe, confirming that it indeed a prequel and not a remake or sequel. "Well, it's not a remake," he explained. "It's really a companion piece to the Carpenter version. We're telling the story of the Norwegian camp that found the Thing before the Kurt Russell group did, so it's very buried in the continuity [and] it's supposed to be the other story that you saw part of. So we didn't want to reinvent it. It was really much the opposite. We really wanted to have this flow seamlessly into what he did."

The Hollywood Reporter steps up to confirm Bloody Disgusting's original report that director Matthijs van Heijningen Jr. has been circled to make The Thing sequel. [Full story]

According to Bloody Disgusting, Swedish commercial director Matthijs van Heijningen Jr. has been tapped to direct Universal's follow-up to The Thing. Van Heijningen had been hired to direct Army of the Dead for Strike Entertainment, the same production company that's also been developing this sequel.

The site also mentions what they know of the movie's synopsis: the main character is supposed to be none other than the brother of Kurt Russell's character from the 1982 picture and the story seems to be a prequel told from the point-of-view of the Norwegians that first discovered the monster! However, BD's summary then veers off and becomes confusing because the site then describes what the premise was for John Carpenter's film.