Winstead, Edgerton cast in 'Thing' remake

Mary Elizabeth Winstead and Joel Edgerton have been cast in Universal's remake of cult horror classic The Thing, says The Hollywood Reporter.

Matthijs Van Heijningen will direct the movie, which centres on Winstead's Ph.D. candidate as she joins a Norwegian research team in Antarctica and discovers an alien ship in the ice. Edgerton will play a mercenary loosely based on the Kurt Russell character from the 1982 movie.

Ronald D. Moore and Eric Heisserer wrote the script for the remake, taking inspiration from John W. Campbell Jr.'s short story Who Goes There. The most famous filmed version was John Carpenter's '80s horror, itself a remake of Howard Hawks's 1951 The Thing From Another World.

Winstead, who appeared in the Death Proof and Die Hard 4.0, can next be seen opposite Michael Cera in Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World.