Taking place nearly thirty years after the events of the first film, IT: CHAPTER TWO stars Jessica Chastain as Beverly, Bill Hader as Richie, James McAvoy as Bill, Isaiah Mustafa as Mike, James Ransone as Eddie, Jay Ryan as Ben, and Andy Bean as Stanley as they set out to take down Pennywise (Bill Skarsgard) once and for all. The upcoming sequel will be a rather lengthy affair for a horror movie, clocking in at 2 hours and 45 minutes, which is about half-an-hour longer than the first film. However, we should probably train our butts to sit a little longer as Andy Muschietti told SFX Magazine that a supercut of both movies could be in our future.
The possibilities are open. There’s a version where the two movies are cut together. There’s a version where there’s a special director’s cut of number one and a special director’s cut of number two. And I’m happy to basically work on every one of them.
There's no guarantee that this supercut of IT and IT: CHAPTER TWO will see the light of day, but Muschietti added that he's working on a director's cut of IT: CHAPTER TWO based on his first directors cut (which was around 4 hours long) which is "definitely going to happen." Given how hugely successful the first film was for Warner Bros., and as projected openings for IT: CHAPTER TWO are quite impressive, I'd imagine that the studio wants to milk everything they can from ol' Pennywise. I smell a theatrical re-release by next Halloween.
This isn't the first time we've heard of a director's cut of IT: CHAPTER TWO, as last month, producer Barbara Muschietti said, "We will put out a director's cut because this time it definitely merits it. We have some amazing scenes that didn't make it into the movie. You have to make choices sometimes and some things cannot be in this theatrical release but are definitely worthy of people seeing them at a later date." Andy Muschietti explained that while it may seem a little lengthy for a horror film, "nobody who's seen the movie has had an complaint."
At the beginning, when you're writing and building the beats of the story, everything that you put in there seems very essential to the story. However, when you have the movie finally edited and it's 4 hours long, you realise that some of the events and some of the beats can be easily lifted but the essence of the story remains intact. You cannot deliver a 4-hour movie because people will start to feel uncomfortable – no matter what they see – but we ended up having a movie that is 2 hours and 45 minutes, and the pacing is very good.
IT: CHAPTER TWO hits theaters on September 6, 2019.