Stop blaming E.T. for The Things failure.

I agree. I fucking hate the argument everyone loves to say about how "people only wanted friendly aliens, not scary aliens". Like what??? Alien came out three years prior and was a massive hit, and Aliens came out three years later and again was another massive hit. Really frustrating to hear people still say that in 2022.

I'm also sick of hearing that the movie was "universally panned" when that's factually untrue. There were some pretty negative reviews, but you can find so many positive reviews from the time period as well. Everyone talks about how Roger Ebert hated The Thing with his 2.5/4 review (which is more medicore than awful, 2.5/4 = 6.4/10), but NOBODY EVER mentions that his partner, Gene Siskel, gave The Thing a 3.5/4 and called it a "great play on Macaurthism" and "truly horrific in ways we've never seen before". On top of that, James Berandenelli, Ty Burr, and Empire all praised The Thing back in 1982. Marc Savlov of the Austin Chronicle even listed it in his Top 10 of the year!

If anything, The Thing failed due to shit marketing. It was released as a summer blockbuster, when it should've been released in the fall or winter season. The last thing people want to see in the fun summertime is a frigid psychological gorefest set in the winter. What the fuck was Universal thinking? I truly think the film would've done far better they had revamped their marketing and released it in November 1982, against no new releases. Would've grossed $50mil.

It is interesting seeing the cold hard facts on the matter.

The lack of legs that Blade Runner and The Thing had is disappointing. Seeing Poltergeist, Star Trek III, Rocky III, Firefox, Annie and co' endure the E.T wave and also see of competition from films like the aforementioned two is impressive.

The longevity of a film is interesting. It's often thought to be heavily influenced by word-of-mouth. Blade Runner opened in second place (just behind E.T.) but within two weeks had fell behind Poltergeist which was 3 weeks older than it (not to mention also falling behind other older releases like Star Trek, Rocky, Annie & Firefox). Off a cliff. A blimp on the radar and then it's gone.

Imagine in modern days. Marvel release a film then 3 weeks later DC release one, with the Marvel film earning more in it's fourth week than the DC film in it's opening week. And the Marvel film earning more in it's sixth week than the DC one did in it's opening. That's what Poltergeist did to The Thing. Box office homicide in the first degree.

The narrative really needs to be redirected away from E.T. and partly towards Poltergeist, but also inwards. The failure of The Thing is partly Universals fault.

I think the fact Poltergeist is a Horror film is part of the reason it's the elephant in the room and ignored in discussions. People would rather blame a kids film than say The Thing got trounced by another Horror flick.

SPOILERS FOR THE THING AND ALIEN:

Well, both ET and Poltergeist had Steven Spielberg's name on them. It was a huge summer for him. He directed ET but produced Poltergeist (and was rumored to have done SOME of the direction, over the named director Tobe Hooper.)

Poltergeist, Star Trek II and Rocky were something that The Thing was not: rated PG. Poltergeist was sort of a "family horror movie" -- both in terms of the protagonists and its "not too scary" scares. The Thing was hard R, raw and bloody and MEAN.

I suppose ET and The Thing were matched up because both were in the SciFi area of fantasy (yep, Star Trek as well), and both were released by Universal. I think as ET became the bigger hit and The Thing didn't "take," Universal pulled out of promoting The Thing.

The Thing opened rather low (Number 8 for the week?) but to flop as big as it did meant that it got bad word of mouth. Here are three reasons why, I believe:

ONE: The terrorizing and killing of innocent dogs. Its one thing to see grown men -- who know what they are up against -- getting horribly killed. But when "the Thing dog" is put in the cage with the other animals, it is sickening and saddening to see the terror of the real dogs as they realize they are trapped with a monster. And then Carpenter shows them being attacked and in pain and in terror. Horrible stuff. And later in the film one more dog is found with an axe in its throat(killed by a man.) The pain inflicted on these dogs is cruel, not entertaining.

TWO: An unhappy ending. Director Ridley Scott wanted to end "Alien" with an alien popping out of Sigourney Weaver, killing her and thus killing everyone(save the cat?) in the movie. Fox executives refused that ending, and Weaver survived (and the cat, too.) The Thing ends pretty much in certainty that the final two men will NOT survive, and the Thing may escape to harm others worldwide.

CONT

I've never heard about any of this before, but based on what you, and other commenters, have written, it seems like E.T. and Poltergeist had a lot to do with The Thing's lack of success. They both came out before The Thing, and were both very successful, so audiences wanting to see a sci-fi/aliens film were going to see the big hit E.T., while audiences wanting a scary film were going to see Poltergeist. Also factor in Poltergeist being clearly a horror film, while The Thing is more ambiguous. Is it scary? Is it aliens? What is it? E.T. and Poltergeist both being PG made a huge difference as well, as families going to the movies together were going to avoid the R-rated film.

When it came down to it, movie-goers had the following choices:

Rocky 3 - everyone knows Rocky, sequel to two successful films, movie for sports and action fans; rated PG
Star Trek 3 - everyone knows Star Trek, sequel to two successful films, movie for science fiction and action fans; rated PG
E.T. - Spielberg's latest, huge hit, kid-friendly, the big hit of the summer; rated PG
Poltergeist - Spielberg-affiliated, huge hit, scary kid-friendly, obviously a ghost/haunted house movie; rated PG
The Thing - Unknown quantity, maybe aliens, but we have E.T., maybe ghosts but we have Poltergeist; rated R

It is ET's fault. Not the movie ET, but the character.

I have never heard this argument come up.

Wasn't The Thing the only R rated film in theaters at the time?

Your criticism of the ET argument is misguided. For this debate I think it's apt to view ET as a proxy for audience tastes of the time. In this sense it's a completely plausible theory that mainstream audiences were looking for more lighthearted and optimistic fare than the relentlessly gruesome and cynical pistol whipping of the senses that The Thing provided. It was almost like watching the chestburster scene from Alien for 2 hours. Poltergeist isn't fair to bring up because, despite a couple of intensely frightening scenes for kids, it was drenched in cutesy suburban family cliches and humor that characterized numerous Spielberg films (he wrote and produced it) since Close Encounters. Poltergeist was far more similar in tone to ET than The Thing.

My view is that The Thing was way ahead of its time and pushed a general audience's tolerance for gore too quickly and too far. It's obviously garnered far more respect decades later than it enjoyed on release. Whether it would have done better business had ET been released a couple months later, who knows? It's impossible to say. But I think it is fair to say that films like Star Wars, Raiders of the Lost Ark, and ET primed audiences to shift away from the gritty cynicism of 70s cinema and left The Thing holding the bag of a bygone era.

Does anybody watch E.T. today? I've had no desire to see it since I saw it in the theater in 82.

The Thing and Blade Runner? I can't think of two more important movies from the 1980s.