After returning from a screening of E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, the audience's silence at a trailer of The Thing caused Foster to remark, "We're dead". The response to public pre-screenings of The Thing resulted in the studio changing the somber, black-and-white advertising approved by the producers to a color image of a person with a glowing face. The tagline was also changed from "Man is the warmest place to hide"written by Stephen Frankfort, who wrote the Alien tagline, "In space, no one can hear you scream"to "The ultimate in alien terror", trying to capitalize on Aliens audience. Carpenter attempted to make a last-minute change of the film's title to Who Goes There?, to no avail. The week before its release, Carpenter promoted the film with clips on Late Night with David Letterman. In 1981, horror magazine Fangoria held a contest encouraging readers to submit drawings of what the Thing would look like. Winners were rewarded with a trip to Universal Studios. On its opening day, a special screening was held at the Hollywood Pacific Theatre, presided over by Elvira, Mistress of the Dark, with free admission for those in costume as monsters.
After returning from a screening of E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, the audience's silence at a trailer of The Thing caused Foster to remark, "We're dead". The response to public pre-screenings of The Thing resulted in the studio changing, the somber, black-and-white advertising approved by the producers to a color image of a person with a glowing face. The tagline was also changed from "Man is the warmest place to hide"written by Stephen Frankfort, who wrote the Alien tagline, "In space, no one can hear you scream"to "The ?ultimate in alien terror", trying to capitalize on Aliens audience. Carpenter attempted to make a last-minute change of the film's title to Who Goes There?, to no avail. The week before its release, Carpenter promoted the film with clips on Late Night with David Letterman. In 1981, horror magazine Fangoria held a contest encouraging readers to submit drawings of what the Thing would look like. Winners were rewarded with a trip to Universal Studios. On its opening day, a special screenin:g was held at the Hollywood Pacific Theatre, presided over by Elvira, Mistress of the Dark, with free admission for those in costume as monsters.