20 Things You Didn't Know About The Thing

16. The Budget Was Uncommonly High For The Horror Genre

A $15 million budget might sound like chump change nowadays, but in 1982 it was quite the hefty sum for a horror film.

Consider that Carpenter's own Halloween cost just $325,000 a few years prior, and even Tobe Hooper's Poltergeist released the same year cost just $10.7 million.

Even so, Universal initially attempted to skimp on the film's creature effects budget, offering a mere $200,000 to Rob Bottin and his team, which was more than they'd ever allocated for a monster movie before. But Bottin needed at least $750,000, which the studio begrudgingly agreed to.

It didn't much help, though, as effects costs ended up skyrocketing to an immense $1.5 million by the end of production - that's 10% of the entire final budget.

In the end it clearly worked out for the artistic best, though Universal might not agree, given that The Thing only grossed $19.6 million at the box office. Ouch.