Hollywood has latched onto The Thing as their latest property to remake. What you’re loyal to John Carpeter’s 1982 version? Sorry that was a remake too. Howard Hawks did it in 1951. Meanwhile they’re all based on a short story. So at least there’s a remake precedent here.

What makes this remake so much more interesting than the average, soulless, Hollywood repurposing is the involvement of one Ron Moore. If that names sounds familiar to you, it’s because you’re a Battlestar Galactica fan and therefore also a super cool person. According to Variety Moore is the executive producer and most brilliant mind behind the new Battlestar, also frequently known as the best show on television. Universal Pictures has hired Moore to write the script for the movie and if they had any sense they would also hire him to direct it to.

Universal does not have a lick of sense. Instead they’ve hired Matthijs Van Heijningen, a director of commercials, to helm their new Thing. On the upside, commercial directors have had a lot of success in the movie world recently. Heck, that’s where Zack Snyder came from. Maybe this guy will have something. Someone seems to think so since he’s also working on an Army of the Dead movie at another studio.

So quick refresher course on The Thing. Well the original novel on which the two previous movies have been based is about a bunch of researchers in an isolated, Antarctica outpost. They find a spaceship buried in the ice, let loose a shape shifting alien pilot. The researchers must figure out which of them it’s replaced and try to stop it from taking over the world. Because apparently, that’s like the lifelong ambition of literally every alien. Personally, I wouldn’t want to run this place. It’s kind of a mess.