Return to Answer

Update:

Cohen expanded on his account of the film's failure at the box office in an October 2016 Reddit AMA:

It was 10 years before I heard anyone speak well of THE THING. It was the director (then actor) Nick Cassavettes who told me it was his favorite movie - the first time I had ever heard anyone say that...

THE THING opened two weeks after the warm glow of E.T. began spreading across the nation and was the start of a crummy summer for John Carpenter and myself. The reviews were uniformly awful, unexpectedly so. Either vitriolic or one-paragraph dismissive. Most declared the film a violent, low grade slasher affair and were annoyed by the ambiguity - many singled out the ending as the source for their frustrations finally boiling over. Seems they were looking for more specific answers than we were willing to provide...

John was particularly hurt by the gore mongering charges that were thrown his way, as if he had made something unclean. The voice of the fan base at the time, STARLOG, declared Johns talents more suited to direct traffic accidents than motion pictures...

I saw THE THING with audiences all over the Los Angeles area on opening weekend. Reaction was muted. Theaters one half or three quarters full Friday and Saturday night. No lines. No advance sales. As Kurt Russell said recently nobody saw the story at the time - only the effects... With no repeat business the movie lost 50 per cent of its theaters by the end of the second week and was playing in some places on the lower half of a double bill with CONAN THE BARBARIAN...

The reviews and poor box office validated the studios concerns about the film, calling it a "missed opportunity." The ramifications began immediately. In the process of actively preparing FIRESTARTER, John had maintained an office on the lot but ended up never checking back in. FIRESTARTER was cancelled a week later. My deal was not renewed and I was politely shown the door a month later. A project I had set up at Columbia, a re-make of ONLY ANGELS HAVE WINGS set along the Alaska Pipeline with helicopters (John directing, Bill Phillips writing, Kurt as Cary) went down the drain as well. The quote from the Columbia executive: "You guys want to make a career out of fucking up Howard Hawks movies?

Further proof of the upside down world we were inhabiting came later that summer when Ennio Morricone's score was nominated for a Razzie. I recall them calling the music pretentious...

The best experience I had watching THE THING with an audience in 1982 came later that summer. I was having dinner with friends at Taylor's Steak House in the Westlake area of Los Angeles and noticed the film playing in Spanish on the lower half of a double bill at a theater across the street. There the place was packed and the response was much better.

• Stuart Cohen, Reddit AMA

There were many, many complaints from critics regarding The Thing, which can be summarized as follows: The effects (which were the work of the legendary Rob Bottin) were too gory; the story was too bleak; there wasn't enough character development; it was too depressing; the pace was too slow; it was too different from the 1951 version (The Thing From Another World, directed by Christian Nyby and produced by Howard Hawks) and too much like the original novella (Who Goes There?, by John W. Campbell, Jr.), and so on.

There were many, many complaints from critics regarding The Thing, which can be summarized as follows:

• The effects (which were the work of the legendary Rob Bottin) were too gory;
• the story was too bleak;
• there wasn't enough character development;
• it was too depressing;
• the pace was too slow;
• it was too different from the 1951 version (The Thing From Another World, directed by Christian Nyby and produced by Howard Hawks) and too much like the original novella (Who Goes There?, by John W. Campbell, Jr.),
• and so on.

Q: Can you remember where you saw this?

A: It was sitting in my office at Universal. Universal had sent it over.

Q: Can you remember where you saw this?

A: It was sitting in my office at Universal. Universal had sent it over.

Imagine a studio sending a filmmaker an article that essentially says "You're doomed". Do you think the studio has enough confidence in the project in question to promote it properly, or give it the wide opening that would help secure its succcess?