Like many of you, I went and saw STEPHEN KING'S IT as quickly as I could this weekend. And like many of you out there, I have read the book IT over and over and know it by heart at this point. Meaning that I know Pennywise the Dancing Clown takes on the form of 50's movie villains the kids fear in the 1958 timeline of the novel.
So what if IT took the fears of 80's movie villains in this new timeline? Like Jason, Michael Myers, Leatherface, etc? I bet we were all thinking the same thing when we saw that super bitchin' poster for NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET 5: THE DREAM CHILD up in the theater at one point in the film.
Well, as it turns out, Muschietti almost did include Freddy as one of Pennywise's forms!
Andy Muschietti on Freddywise:
Obviously, we considered that for a bit, but I wasn't too interested in bringing Freddy Krueger into the mix. I love the story and I love how Stephen King basically makes a portrait of childhood in the '50s. He's very genuine when he brings all the Universal Monsters to the repertoire of incarnation because that's what kids were afraid of. It would be a natural path to try to recreate that in the '80s, but I really wasn't too crazy about bringing stuff like Freddy Krueger into the story. I thought it was a bit too meta with New Line involved in the film. It's distracting and it didn't feel right, for some reason.
Now I agree this would have been distracting, but I can also say that I would have been a surprise that would have broken horror movies forever. To say that Pennywise aka IT was the real force behind ALL horror villains (which is basically what the book says) is a bold move and I don't blame them for going their own way.
Are you disappointed Muschietti chose not to use Freddy Krueger in IT? Let us know what you think in the new comments section below or on Facebook, Twitter, and/or Instagram!
IT is currently playing nationwide!