Guess who's peeking out from the sewers and preparing to terrorize everyone after 25 years of presumed defeat. It's none other than that demonic, murderous clown Pennywise from the adaptation of Stephen King's It.
Yes, It is happening. Warner Brothers and New Line Cinema already gave part one of the two-part film adaptation an official release date and Pennywise the Dancing Clown-as he introduced himself to Georgie- will be after you and your children come Sept. 8, 2017.
When the idea of bringing back the demonic clown first surfaced, Cary Fukunaga was set to direct the new adaptation but he bowed out of the project in 2015 because the studios were not supportive of his script.
"I was trying to make an unconventional horror film [...] what I was trying to do was an elevated horror film with actual characters. They didn't want any characters. They wanted archetypes and scares [...] They wanted me to make a much more inoffensive, conventional script. But I don't think you can do proper Stephen King and make it inoffensive [...] I was honoring King's spirit of it, but I needed to update it. King saw an earlier draft and liked it," Fukunaga explained his decision to leave the production.
The studios were quick to hire Andres Muschietti as director when Fukunaga left and it seems they prefer Muschietti's take on one of King's horror novels. Sources say that the new version of It will be split according to the characters' ages. Part one will focus on the seven main characters as children and how they dealt with the sadistic clown. Part two will focus on them as adults.
"It is very close to the source material in one way but very different if you look at it as a literary piece of work [...] We're taking it and making the movie from the point of view of the kids, and then making another movie from the point of view of the adults," Producer Roy Lee said. He added that fans of King's novel would be happy about it. Then again, it may be too early to make that assumption because we all know true hardcore fans are not that easy to please.
Will Poulter, who was originally chosen to play Pennywise for the Fukunaga-led production, has already dropped out due to conflicts in schedules.
Let's hope that Muschietti and Gary Dauberman's rewrite is not just all "archetypes and scares."
