The Thing Blu-ray and DVD Arrive January 31st

Dec 3, 2011 by Brian Gallagher

An expedition of a lifetime becomes a subterranean nightmare in The Thing, the thrilling prelude to John Carpenter's 1982 film of the same name. Debuting on Blu-ray Combo Pack with UltraViolet, DVD, Digital Download and On Demand on January 31, 2011, The Thing stars Mary Elizabeth Winstead (Scott Pilgrim Vs. the World) as paleontologist Kate Lloyd who, along with the crew's pilot Carter (Joel Edgerton, Warrior), discovers a mysterious organism buried in the ice.

When a simple experiment frees the creature from its frozen prison, it unleashes a flood of chaos and paranoia upon the camp, pitting the team against one another. With the ability to mimic the physicality of anything or anyone that it touches, the shape-shifting creature makes everyone a suspect in this suspenseful psychological thriller. From Dawn Of The Dead producers Marc Abraham and Eric Newman, The Thing also stars Ulrich Thomsen (Season of the Witch), Eric Christian Olsen (NCIS: Los Angeles), Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje (Lost), Paul Braunstein (The Tuxedo) and Kim Bubbs (Bloodletting & Miraculous Cures).

The Thing Blu-ray Combo Pack includes an all-new UltraViolet copy of the film. UltraViolet is the revolutionary new way for consumers to collect movies and TV shows, put them in the cloud and stream instantly to computers, tablets and smart phones and soon, consumers can download to devices of their choice too. The Thing Blu-ray Combo Pack also includes a DVD as well as a Digital Copy of the film which is compatible with iTunes, iPad, iPhone, iPod touch, Android or other retail partners. So now, consumers can truly enjoy their movies and TV shows anytime, anywhere, on the platform of their choice.

Deleted/Extended ScenesThe 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."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.Feature Commentary: With Director Matthijs van Heijningen Jr. and Producer Eric Newman.
UltraViolet: The revolutionary new way for consumers to collect movies and TV shows, put them in the cloud and stream instantly to computers, tablets and smart phones, currently available in the United States only.BD-Live: Access the BD-Live Center through your Internet-connected player to watch the latest trailers and more!Pocket Blu app: The groundbreaking pocket Blu app uses iPad, iPhone, iPod touch, Android, PC and Mac to work seamlessly with a network-connected Blu-ray player. Plus iPad and Android tablet owners can enjoy a new, enhanced edition of pocket Blu made especially to take advantage of the tablets' larger screen and high resolution display. Consumers will be able to browse through a library of Blu-ray content and watch entertaining extras on-the-go in a way that's bigger and better than ever before. pocket Blu offers advanced features such as:Advanced Remote Control: A sleek, elegant new way to operate your Blu-ray player. Users can navigate through menus, playback and BD-Live functions with ease.Video Timeline: Users can easily bring up the video timeline, allowing them to instantly access any point in the film.Mobile-To-Go: Users can unlock a selection of bonus content with their Blu-ray discs to save to their device or to stream from anywhere there is a Wi-Fi network, enabling them to enjoy content on the go, anytime, anywhere.Browse Titles: Users will have access to a complete list of pocket Blu-enabled titles available and coming to Blu-ray Hi-Def. They can view free previews and see what additional content is available to unlock on their device.Keyboard: Entering data is fast and easy with your device's intuitive keyboard.uHear: Never miss another line of dialogue with this innovative feature that instantly skips back a few seconds on your Blu-ray disc and turns on the subtitles to highlight what you missed.

The Thing was released October 14th, 2011 and stars Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Joel Edgerton, Ulrich Thomsen, Eric Christian Olsen, Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje, Paul Braunstein, Trond Espen Seim, Kim Bubbs. The film is directed by Matthijs van Heijningen Jr..

Sources: Universal Studios Home Entertainment

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"In Time" and "The Thing": What Happened?

John Scalzi is an award-winning science fiction writer.This week, two questions about recent (and sadly underperforming) science fiction films, for which I provide two separate answers. Double your pleasure! Double your fun!

First question:

You mentioned the connection between V for Vendetta and the Occupy movement in last week's column. Do you have any thoughts about the connection between In Time and the same movement?

Yes, it's not been lost on me that some people have called In Time, with its stark future in which time is a currency the poor drop dead from lack of while the rich live forever, Occupy Wall Street: The Movie.

This is an issue of coincidental timing more than anything else; the movie was being developed long before the Occupy movement got started -- indeed, possibly even before the "Tea Party" movement, to which the Occupy movement is seen as a political counterbalance, got underway. Movies take a long time to make, folks.

Even so, it would seem like the movie is in the right place at the right time with the right message. But maybe not: With a current domestic box office take of about $30 million against a $40 million budget, the movie seems unlikely to recoup its production costs here at home (it's made $83 million worldwide so far, which is OK). This seems underwhelming, considering the ripped-from-the-headlines connection people want to make between current events and the movie. One way to explain it would be to joke that the movie's natural audience -- the Occupy protestors -- were too busy in the streets to occupy a movie theater.

A more realistic explanation would be to note that the movie was respectfully if tepidly reviewed, and while it featured a cast of hot young things, including Justin Timberlake, none of them have a particularly good track record of putting butts into seats (except Amanda Seyfried, but her specialty is romance, not science fiction). Director Andrew Nicoll has been down this road before; his best-known film is Gattaca, a respectfully reviewed science fiction film with a cast of (then) hot young things, including Ethan Hawke, Uma Thurman, and Jude Law. It did mediocre business but then got a second life in video. I suspect that In Time is going to go that route as well, and that the "Occupy" association will be more meaningful then than it is now.

Next question:

What happened to The Thing? I thought it would be a hit, considering the popularity of the original.

By "the original," I'm assuming my correspondent means John Carpenter's 1982 version of The Thing, which is in fact a remake of the 1951 film The Thing From Another World. The latest version is meant to be a prequel to the 1982 movie. And as for the popularity of that version, it's worth remembering that when the film came out, it wasn't hugely successful at all -- it was generally poorly reviewed and made about $20 million in box office off a $15 million budget. It was in fact the number three science fiction movie at the box office its opening week. What was number two? Blade Runner. Number one? E.T. the Extraterrestrial. Yes, it was a tough week.

The 2011 version of The Thing brought in $8.5 million its first weekend at the box office -- which is almost exactly what the 1982 film made its first weekend, when you adjust for inflation. Unfortunately for the new movie, it came out in an era when horror movies (even science fiction horror movies) take up to half their box office in the first weekend. That was certainly the case here, since the new movie is currently scraping toward $17 million. What it will need to hope for is some additional international revenue and then home video and TV sales to close the gap. This is where the 1982 version of The Thing became a hit; its long afterlife in home video is what fuels its current status as a classic.

I suspect there may be a lesson here for filmmakers, which is that a movie becoming a hit on home video does not necessarily mean the remake/prequel/whatever is going to be a huge hit on the big screen. Likewise, it's a rare horror remake that comes close to the success of its original. Another John Carpenter movie stands testament to this: Halloween, which in 1978 raked in about $47 million, or about $160 million in today's dollars. The 2007 remake, by Rob Zombie, brought in $58 million, which is just over a third of the adjusted gross of the original. As it happens, the $17 million gross of the 2011 Thing comes out to just under a third of the 1982 movie's box office, when adjusted into current dollars.

Interesting. And, again, perhaps a relevant thing for today's filmmakers to be aware of, when they're ransacking past films for ideas.

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