Now that Blumhouse have brought so many successful original horror movies to the big screen over the past decade, they have built up enough trust (and enough money) to start moving into reboots and other adaptations of well-known properties as well. They’ve already given makeovers to Halloween and Black Christmas and they also have The Invisible Man and Fantasy Island coming next month. But this week’s announcement is perhaps the most surprising one of all. We are hearing that they will be rebooting another John Carpenter film with an interesting twist: The Thing will be retold by going back to the original story in its never-before-seen expanded form. Producer Alan Donnes recently made this announcement on Facebook:

“It’s OFFICIAL! I received my signed contract and first check! I am Executive Producing a remake of THE THING but with additional chapters of John Campbell’s groundbreaking novel, Frozen Hell, that had been lost for decades. Now, for the first time ever, Campbell’s full vision will be realized on the big screen. The new film will include the very best of RKO’s THE THING FROM ANOTHER WORLD, John Carpenter’s classic THE THING and both books, Frozen Hell and Who Goes There?”

Both 1951’s The Thing from Another World and 1982’s The Thing were based on John W. Campbell Jr.’s novella “Who Goes There?”, which had been shortened for publication from a full-length novel. The full manuscript was recently rediscovered and there is now an active Kickstarter campaign to get it published. John Betancourt, who is running the campaign, confirmed that this new movie adaptation of the book is coming from Universal and Blumhouse.

Universal made a prequel back in 2011 that more or less played like a remake of John Carpenter’s film. It wasn’t bad but it already seems to have been forgotten. Whether the same fate will befall this version of The Thing remains to be seen, but at the very least they have come up with a solid justification for telling the story over again. It is unclear if John Carpenter will be involved in this new version in any way. Are you excited to see The Thing return to the big screen?