Cary Fukunaga was just three weeks away from going into production on an adaptation of the Stephen King novel It when he decided to leave the project, despite the fact that he had spent years working on it and writing multiple drafts of the screenplay with Chase Palmer. We know how that all turned out: Andy Muschietti replaced Fukunaga at the helm of It, Annabelle franchise writer Gary Dauberman polished the script, and the film was released by New Line Cinema in 2017. Fukunaga and Palmer shared screenplay credit with Dauberman on Muschietti’s film, which made over $700 million at the global box office. In a recent interview, Fukunaga was asked why he walked away from It, and in his response he indicated that he and New Line disagreed on the balance of drama and horror.
Fukunaga told The Hollywood Reporter,
I was on that for four or five years with Warners and then it got moved to New Line, right before we were about to go into production. I think New Line’s view of what they wanted and my view of what I wanted were very different. I wanted to do a drama with horror elements, more like The Shining. I think they wanted to do something more [pure horror] like Annabelle [from the Conjuring films]. That was essentially the disconnect.”
The fact that Dauberman was hired to work on the script after Fukunaga left does seem to confirm that New Line had Annabelle in mind when they were planning It.
While the first It was well received, It: Chapter Two was more divisive. Fukunaga and Palmer had nothing to do with that one.
Everything worked out for both Fukunaga and Muschietti in the long run. Muschietti has moved on from the financially successful It duology and is now directing The Flash, while Fukunaga has directed the upcoming James Bond movie No Time to Die. Fukunaga also continues to collaborate with It producers Dan Lin and Roy Lee, so there was no bad blood between them after he abandoned It.
As Fukunaga says,
If I was a difficult director, they wouldn’t necessarily want to be working with me.”