Cary Fukunaga shares new details on IT, still seeking 'perfect' Pennywise

Cary Fukunaga shares new details on IT, still seeking ‘perfect’ Pennywise

March 4th 2015, 8:41am

Last Updated on July 22, 2021

"They all float down here."

Cary Fukunaga, the director behind the great HBO series "True Detective," is about to embark on his biggest project yet with a two-film big-screen adaptation of Stephen King's classic tome, IT, and now he's shared a few new details about what we can expect.

Speaking to Brazilian newspaper O Globo, Fukunaga revealed that Master of Horror Stephen King is excited about the latest screenplay, and that the difficult search for the perfect actor to slip into Pennywise's clown shoes continues.

“I’ve been in this project for about five years.I had already read versions of the script but nothing felt right. Everybody tried to put too much into it, telling it from the perspective of the adult and the child in a two hour movie. It didn’t fit. So I decided to throw it all away and start from scratch.

“This will be my first movie in the US and I’m still trying to find the perfect guy to play Pennywise. It’s really good to know Stephen [King] likes what we did. We (Fukunaga and writers David Kajganich and Chase Palmer) changed names, dates (the story is originally set in the 60′s) dynamics, but the spirit is similar to what he’d like to see in cinemas, I think.”

What I find interesting is that Fukunaga and his writers have played around with the dates in the novel. If Fukunaga is planning a modern-day take, that could mean the period-set childhood half will take place in the 80's or early 90's, depending on whether or not he changed the ages of some of the characters.

Here's IT's synopsis:

It’s a small city, a place as hauntingly familiar as your own hometown. Only in Derry the haunting is real… They were seven teenagers when they first stumbled upon the horror. Now they are grown-up men and women who have gone out into the big world to gain success and happiness. But none of them can withstand the force that has drawn them back to Derry to face the nightmare without an end, and the evil without a name.