Well, here’s the thing… John Carpenter appeared at Fan Expo Chicago tonight, where he was asked the question horror fans […]
Well, here’s the thing…
John Carpenter appeared at Fan Expo Chicago tonight, where he was asked the question horror fans have been asking for decades: Are we ever going to get a sequel to The Thing?
His answer was surprisingly direct.
“We’re working on it now.”
When pressed, Carpenter quickly tempered expectations, adding:
“Yeah, I don’t know. We’ll see.”
So no, The Thing 2 isn’t officially happening just yet. But Carpenter saying they’re actively “working on it” certainly makes this a hell of a lot more interesting.
And there’s some important context here: this actually isn’t the first time Carpenter has used almost exactly those words. He previously teased “We’re working on it now” during a 2025 Fan Expo appearance, and he’s been dropping cryptic hints about a possible sequel for several years.
Back in 2023, Carpenter revealed that he’d been “sworn to secrecy” because there “may be a Thing 2.” Even more interestingly, he previously suggested there was another piece of the story worth exploring and specifically pointed out that, as far as he’s concerned, MacReady and Childs were both still alive when the credits rolled on the 1982 film.
Of course, Carpenter’s The Thing famously leaves Kurt Russell’s R.J. MacReady and Keith David’s Childs sitting together in the ruins of Outpost 31, neither man knowing whether the other has been assimilated.
There have been multiple attempts to keep The Thing alive since then, including the 2002 video game and the 2011 prequel, while Universal and Blumhouse have also explored another film based on John W. Campbell Jr.’s source material.
But a true sequel to Carpenter’s movie remains the big one.
