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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
Entertainment
Interviews by Simon Bland

John Carpenter on horror classic The Thing: ‘It was an enormous failure and I got fired’

‘The big beard was his idea’ … Kurt Russell as RJ MacReady in the 1982 sci-fi shocker.
‘The big beard was his idea’ … Kurt Russell as RJ MacReady in the 1982 sci-fi shocker. Photograph: Universal Pictures/Allstar

John Carpenter, director

One of my favourite films was The Thing From Another World. The idea of remaking it was daunting but exciting. This was also my first studio movie so many things were at my disposal – it was very different to independent film-making where you have to scrounge around. The blood-test scene is the reason I did the movie. I thought I could do something special with it.

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