Drew Struzan is teaming up with Mondo to release a limited edition version of his poster art for The Thing that has been produced for Alamo Drafthouse's Summer of '82 screening of the movie. Unlike the original poster, this one will feature just Struzan's artwork without the logo and additional text. We thought readers would be interested in a recent interview where Drew Struzan talked about the making of this classic poster:
Struzan via Movies.com: "[Laughs] Well, they probably had an idea of who I was back then and had already been considering me for work because as it turns out I was able to work faster and more accurately than a lot of guys. So when they ran into trouble they would give me a call, which was okay since I was trying to make a living. At the time I was living in Lake Arrowhead, which is like a hundred miles from LA, so I didn't have a lot of physical connection with Hollywood. I got a phone call, the simplest phone call I ever got, saying, "We have a job, we want to know if you can do it, the catch is we need it by tomorrow."
So they're talking a major motion picture with a full color, painted poster and they wanted it by the next morning. [Laughs] I said, "Sure, what is it?" and they said, "Do you remember the movie The Thing from the '60s?" "Yeah, I saw it. Neat movie." "Well, we're redoing it. That's what it is." "Okay, cool. You need it when?" "Tomorrow morning. We don't have any photos for you, we don't have any concept stuff, we just want you to do the drawing of what you think you'd do and then do a painting of it by tomorrow morning." "That's it? You spent millions of dollars on this thing and you don't have any reference materials, just make it however I feel? Sure, I'll try." [Laughs]
It was a very odd experience. I got an immediate concept, which is not unusual for me; I usually have something roving around in my mind. I dressed up in a winter snow outfit and my wife took a Polaroid of me. This was 30 years ago, back in the stone age when the only way to communicating a hundred miles away was the telephone or the fax machine. So I did the drawing and I faxed it back to the studio and they said, "Fine. We need it by tomorrow morning." I went to work. We stopped for a moment and I took some more photos with my wife, this time with a 35mm camera. She developed the film for me and I just started drawing, then painting through the rest of the day, then painting through the rest of the night. At 9 am a guy shows up at my doorstep and says, "Is the painting ready?" I had about an hour to go, so I finished painting it and he took it away. Since then it's done more traveling than I have. [Laughs] It's been around the world many, many times."
We've included the poster artwork below and will have information on sale information as soon as it becomes available. To read the rest of the interview, visit: http://www.movies.com/movie-news/mondo-struzan-the-thing/8439
After spending more than 10 years as a consultant in the tech and entertainment industry, Jonathan James launched Daily Dead in 2010 to share his interest in horror and sci-fi. Since then, it has grown into an online magazine with a staff of writers that provide daily news, reviews, interviews, and special features.
As the Editor-in-Chief of Daily Dead, Jonathan is responsible for bringing the latest horror news to millions of readers from around the world. He is also consulted with as an expert on zombies in entertainment and pop culture, providing analyses of the zombie sub-genre to newspapers, radio stations, and convention attendees.
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