Mary Elizabeth Winstead and Joel Edgerton will star in the prequel to John Carpenter's 1982 horror classic "The Thing."

Filming will start in March and continue through June with Matthijs Van Heijningen at the helm for Universal Pictures. He's working from a script by "Battlestar Galactica" executive producer Ronald D. Moore and Eric Heisserer ("A Nightmare on Elm Street" remake).

Winstead ("The Ring Two," "Final Destination 3") will play a Ph.D. candidate attached to a Norwegian research team in Antarctica. They discover an alien ship in the ice and release a shape-shifting organism, which attacks the scientists, forcing her and a mercenary helicopter pilot -- Edgerton ("Acolytes") -- to stop the rampage. The Norwegian's fate serves as a catalyst for the events of Carpenter's film.

"The Thing" is based on events from the 1938 novella "Who Goes There?" by John W. Campbell, Jr.

Producing the prequel are Strike Entertainment's Marc Abraham and Eric Newman, whose credits include "Children of Men" and "Dawn Of The Dead." David Foster will executive produce.