The Thing prequel delayed indefinitely, Fast Five gets moved up

Were you getting excited for that prequel to THE THING that’s set to hit theaters in April of next year? Well if I were you, I might temper my expectations as Universal has pulled the film from its release calendar. The film was scheduled to hit theaters on April 29th but the studio yanked the film and has moved up FAST FIVE to take its slot on that date.

The official party line is that THE THING “was not yet ready” (an odd thing to say considering the release date was over five months away) and the studio was excited to get FAST FIVE into theaters sooner. (If you’ll remember, FAST AND FURIOUS, the last installment, also opened in April and to huge numbers.)

The news for FAST FIVE is rather negligible but for THE THING it could be a killer. It certainly sounds like the studio wasn’t happy with what they had and are taking their time to figure out a new strategy for the film. The project, which stars Mary Elizabeth Winstead and Eric Christian Olsen, had already faced some criticism from fanboys so it’ll be interesting to see if this has any further impact on the project’s buzz.