The cast and filmmakers of Universal’s The Thing made an appearance at the 2010 New York Comic-Con on Saturday to promote their upcoming prequel to John Carpenter’s 1982 film, and revealed the first footage from the new film (see footage description here below).

Director Matthijs van Heijningen said that in the film we will get to see The Thing creature in its “pure form” — the form in which it’s been trapped in the ice in for all these years, but he also hinted that since the very nature of The Thing is stealing the biological identity of other lifeforms and it being from another planet, how could we know what this entity’s pure form really is.

Heijningen talked about a bit the effects used in the film, stating that they used as many practical effects (as opposed to CGI) as possible. He said he feels that playing against a man in a suit is much better for the actors than looking at a tennis ball on a string against a green screen. “We had as many real monsters on the set as possible,” the director said.

Nothing to go dancing around crazy-giddy-happy about, but a couple of images from some exciting upcoming movies that are in the beginning stages of production have been released online.

The first comes from Comic Book Movie, who have gotten their hands on a sneaky photograph from the set of Green Lantern. The movie stars Ryan Reynolds as Hal Jordan, a pilot who discovers a space craft that has crashed and finds himself presented with a special ring, making him the newest member of a group known as the Green Lanterns. The movie also stars Blake Lively as Jordan’s boss and eventual love interest, Mark Strong as the evil villain Sinestro, Peter Sarsgaard as Dr. Hector Hammond, and Tim Robbins, who will play the Senator father of Hammond.

The set image actually shows what is assumed (as you can plainly see) to be the aforementioned space craft that crashes on Earth and sets all of the events of the movie into motion.

Hum a little tune to yourself and frolic over to the other side to check out these two first peeks at these movies.

The remake of one of the most popular horror movies of all time, John Carpenter‘s The Thing, is moving forward, and it now has officially cast its two lead star in Mary Elizabeth Winstead and Joel Edgerton.

Winstead will be playing a “Ph.D. candidate” who joins the Norwegian team after they discover an alien craft frozen solid in the ice. Edgerton will be playing a mercenary helicopter pilot, which would be the Kurt Russell role of the remake. The duo will eventually join up when a strange creature breaks free and starts killing people.

The movie is directed by Matthijs Van Heijningen, a long-time producer making his directorial debut. The screenplay is where some strong excitement can be discovered; it was written by Battlestar Galactica and Caprica god Ronald D. Moore, as well as Eric Heisserer, who wrote the A Nightmare on Elm Street remake script.