THE THING turns 26 today!
THE THING hit theaters 26 years ago today! Fri. June 25th, 1982. T

I vividly remember the summer of '82 when I first saw it at the drive in....it was a weird experience....I was only nine years old at the time, but I knew without a doubt in my mind that it was going to become a classic.

Man...wish I coulda been alive to see that marvelous event happen at my local theater. Would've made my life.

Unfortunately I didn't catch it until it was on cable a year later, or so... But I did finally catch it on the big screen at THING FEST!

I want a headcrab cake with 26 candles! :twisted: 8) :lol:

How in the fuck did this movie bomb at the box office? Really....

E.T.

You know...I've heard that, but I honestly don't buy it. Alot of other sci-fi/horror flicks came out that year and still did okay. JC got screwed, somehow! :lol:

It was the extreme graphicness of the horror....Think about it....splatter like that was still quite new to audiences (except film geeks like me) back in '82. People went in to see a nice little alien story and they got a punch in the face. The film was just simply ahead of its time.

Well, you see, the other great sci-fi films like Blade Runner, Star Trek II, and Conan the Barbarian came out in other months. E.T. and The Thing were released in the same month. Within a week of each other, is that right Todd?

E.T. opened June 11th, THE THING two weeks later on the 25th. Both are Universal films... (BLADE RUNNER also opened on the 25th. ) T

Personally, I don't think it would've done any better in the box office had it been released at any other time. The Thing was just an otherworldly film at that time, and people just weren't buying such extreme stuff like that. If it were released some 15 years later, it probably would've been a much bigger hit.