Mary Elizabeth Winstead ("Final Destination 3D," "Scott Pilgrim") and Joel Edgerton ("The Square," "Star Wars: Episode II") are tipped to be the lead stars of Universal's upcoming prequel/remake of "The Thing" reports Heat Vision.

The project marks the third adaptation of a 1938 short story. Howard Hawks directed the first version, 1951's "The Thing From Another World", and the John Carpenter-directed 1982 horror feature "The Thing" starring Kurt Russell.

This incarnation appears to essentially serve as a prequel of sorts to Carpenter's film. Winstead will play an American student working on her Ph.D. at a Norwegian research facility in Antarctica. The scientists onboard discover an alien ship frozen in the ice and unwittingly release a deadly shape-shifting organism that picks them off.

Edgerton plays a mercenary helicopter pilot whom the student enlists to help stop the creature from escaping to the outside world where it would multiply and destroy all life on Earth.

Ronald D. Moore and Eric Heisserer penned the script which Matthijs Van Heijningen is directing. Marc Abraham and Eric Newman are producing. Filming kicks off March 15th in Toronto.

Ronald D. Moore has previously written the reboot of Battlestar Galactica, Caprica, Carnivalé and Star Trek: First Contact.BACK TO THE ARTICLE