John Carpenter’s 1982 horror masterpiece The Thing is one of the most popular films in the world of alternative movie posters. It’s a perfect cross-section of just popular enough, but also just obscure enough, that almost any collector would consider buying it because basically everyone likes it. The problem then becomes how do you do something new? What can an artist do with The Thing that five others haven’t done already?
Artist Anthony Petrie has cracked the code. He’s made a stunning new poster for The Thing called “If It Takes Us Over, Then It Has No More Enemies, Nobody Left To Kill It. And Then It’s Won,” and it’s unlike any Thing poster you’ve ever seen before. It’ll be available via Vice Press on Thursday, September 19 in three editions, all of which are 24 x 36 inches. First is the regular edition of 150 which costs £50.
Next is the variant edition of 75 which glows in the dark. It costs £55.
Finally is a multi-layered acrylic panel, in an edition of 50. It costs £135 but, in the below slideshow, you can see why.
Click to open Slideshow
Petrie developed the poster with Vice and Bottleneck Gallery and it’ll be on sale at this link at 1 p.m. ET on Thursday. Below, we caught up with the artist who answered a few questions about the poster via email.
Germain Lussier, io9: There are a lot of AMPs for The Thing but this one is so unique. How did you come up with the idea and were you specifically looking to do something that stood out from the pack?
Anthony Petrie: I always try to explore ideas that may be more loosely tied to a property. I think it’s fine to be on-the-nose for a lot of posters, but The Thing as a movie is so high concept, I didn’t want to pull from the obvious (snow, dogs, Kurt Russell, etc). The practical effects in that movie are so believable and well executed, this is kind of my homage to that, as well as how iconic the autopsy scene was.
io9: Did the idea of the creature in a body pose any challenges, design-wise?
Petrie: There’s always a challenge of a poster being too busy when there’s a lot of detail and complexity, and then losing a key movie element in the chaos. It’s part of the reason why I decided to forgo a detailed background and really focus on the main image. The creature in this case is the smallest part of the image, however the negative space surrounding it really helps draw your attention to the important part.
io9: Was it difficult to figure out a place for the title treatment?
Petrie: The title treatment was really a sticking point for this one for all involved parties, re: needing the branding to be visible, etc. Again, I wanted to forget the obvious choice of slapping the official logo on top of the art, so I decided to make it part of the concept. Hiding the logo in plain sight. The giant letters are literally hiding behind the human body, peeking out from behind it, hard to see from a distance because of the outline, but as you look closer you’re able to see it’s THE THING.
Again, Anthony Petrie’s The Thing goes on sale at 1 p.m. ET on Thursday, September 19. Read more about it here.
Want more io9 news? Check out when to expect the latest Marvel, Star Wars, and Star Trek releases, what’s next for the DC Universe on film and TV, and everything you need to know about the future of Doctor Who.
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