I'm certain my story isn't unique, but a premature viewing of IT sparked a deep unease surrounding clowns that has persisted for the majority of my life. Once Andrés Muschietti's upcoming adaptation of the Stephen King story is released, I suppose I'll have to face those fears again, but unlike the first time, I'm actually hoping that Muschietti's film will scare the crap out of me.
Every thirty years, an unspeakable evil appears to stalk the town of Derry, Maine, and when Bill Denbrough loses his brother to its latest reign of terror, he teams up with a group of kids known as the Losers’ Club who have also had encounters with the "malevolent force" known as Pennywise. While speaking with USA Today, director Andrés Muschietti (MAMA) spilled a few details about the remake as well as releasing a few new images. Muschietti said that one of the main themes to be explored in the film will be innocence lost.
It happens in the book, this coming of age and kids facing their own mortality, which is something that in real life happens in a more progressive way and slowed down. There’s a passage (in It) that reads, ‘Being a kid is learning how to live and being an adult is learning how to die.’ There’s a bit of a metaphor of that and it just happens in a very brutal way, of course.
Another passage of Stephen King's novel which inspired Muschietti was when Bill wonders if Pennywise is eating children simply because that's what we're told monsters do. "It’s a tiny bit of information, but that sticks with you so much," Muschietti says. "Maybe it is real as long as children believe in it. And in a way, Pennywise’s character is motivated by survival. In order to be alive in the imagination of children, he has to keep killing." It's still a little too early to tell whether IT will be a success, but if it is, the sequel would feature the now grown children coming to terms with their experiences with Pennywise thirty years later.
It’s about remembering things that they have forgot. Getting back in touch with those memories is such an important part of the plot. [IT will] make you think about what will happen 30 years later when Pennywise comes again.
Although it will likely be tough for Bill Skarsgard to win the approval of audiences who have terrifying memories of Tim Curry's Pennywise in their heads, Muschietti promises that Skarsgard's take on the character will be more terrifying before you'll never be sure of what he'll do next or what form he'll take.
It’s established that Pennywise takes the shape of your worst fear. He doesn’t have a steady behavior, he doesn’t expose how he thinks, and that’s what makes him really unpredictable.
IT is set for a September 8, 2017 release.