Andy Muschietti on the epic run-time of It: Chapter Two

Last Updated on July 30, 2021

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 take on Pennywise (Bill Skarsgard) when he re-emerges in the town of Derry.

The finale of the big-screen adaptation of the Stephen King novel will be quite the epic, as director Andy Muschietti revealed to Digital Spy that the run-time of IT: CHAPTER TWO will come in at 2 hours and 45 minutes, which is about half-an-hour longer than the first film. "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," Muschietti explained. "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." While that might seem like quite the run-time for a horror film, Muschietti said that "nobody who's seen the movie has had any complaint." Although quite a chunk of the film landed on the cutting-room floor, IT: CHAPTER TWO producer Barbara Muschietti said that we'll likely see this footage in a director's cut which will be released at a later stage.

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.

IT: CHAPTER TWO is set to hit theaters on September 6, 2019.