@Its_RSquared
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Before the release of "The Thing" (1982), John Carpenter attended a market research screening of the movie. After one of those screenings, Carpenter got up and asked the audience their thoughts on the movie. One young girl stood up and asked, "Well what happened in the very end? Which one was the Thing, and which one was the good guy?”
Carpenter replied, "Well, you have to use your imagination.”
She said, “Oh, God. I hate that.”
Carpenter then and there felt that the movie was dead in the water.
When Carpenter was asked if the alternate ending would have made a difference, he said,
"There was absolutely no difference in audience reaction between that and the one we had. So the problem was inherent—the film wasn’t heroic enough, it wasn’t the U.S. Hockey team beating the Russians. That’s what people wanted to see."
("John Carpenter on “The Thing”", Erik Bauer, Creative Screenwriting, 2014)
P.S: On this day, 44 years ago, "The Thing" (1982) was released in the USA and Canada.View quoted post on X
