At the start of the film 'The Mist' Thomas Jane's character is shown working on the artwork for a movie poster. What is the name of the movie that the painting was intended to advertise, and the artist responsible for the painting in real life?

For the alert viewer, Frank Darabont's stunning new movie The Mist - which may one day be seen as America's definitive post-9/11 movie - discloses everything about itself in the opening shot. Darabont's protagonist - soon to be sorely tested indeed - is movie-poster artist David Drayton (Thomas Jane) and as he works on a new painting, the camera focuses on a poster for John Carpenter's 1982 remake of Howard Hawks and Christian Nyby's THE THING (1951), showing a man in an icy landscape wearing a parka with a large hood, from which emanates a blinding white light that completely obscures his face.
But for Frank Darabont it was an unmissable opportunity to showcase the work of his favourite artist, DREW STRUZAN.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/culture/2008/jun/27/filmandmusic1.filmandmusic6

Good try, lynnstigger. You've got the name of the poster artist correct - well done - but the movie is not "The Thing".

At the start of the film, a framed poster for "The Thing" can be seen on the wall of Jane's studio, along with other movie posters all done by Drew Struzan. However, Jane is sitting at an easel in the middle of the room airbrushing another painting, which was intended for a movie adaptation of a well-known series of books. Struzan was specially commissioned by Darabont to paint this painting for "The Mist", because the movie in question has not been made (yet). So I guess I'm really looking for the name of the book series, or of the first book in the series.

"In the opening shot, David is drawing in his room. The drawing is based on Stephen King's Dark Tower series, and the drawing was actually painted by famous movie poster designer, Drew Struzan."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mist_(film)

Yes, elements of the artwork clearly indicate that he was painting "The Gunslinger" from the "Dark Tower" series, which was a nice in-joke, since Stephen King also wrote the story on which "The Mist" is based. Well done, queproblema.