Things are really floating for Andrés Muschietti’s two-part remake of Stephen King’s It. A few weeks ago, the filmmaker posted a few pieces of concept art and set photos for his adaptation, and now he’s gone ahead and unleashed a terrifying first look at Bill Skarsgård as the nefarious titular force, Pennywise.
The soon-to-be 26-year-old actor spoke to Entertainment Weekly about the “extreme character,” specifically its complicated mythos: “He’s not even a clown. I’m playing just one of the beings It creates,” he explained, adding: “What’s funny to this evil entity might not be funny to everyone else. But he thinks it’s funny.”
Skarsgård also addressed the big shoes waiting to be filled with sewage water. “Tim Curry’s performance was truly great, but it’s important for me to do something different because of that,” he remarks of the veteran actor’s iconic role in the 1990 mini-series. “I’ll never be able to make a Tim Curry performance as good as Tim Curry.”
Better yet, the kid’s hit the books, as he contends: “I’ve been doing some clown research. I’m not sure if there was so much clown phobia before the novel. There’s obviously been this thing where people find clowns are unsettling, but nobody explored it the way Stephen King did.”
As previously reported, this adaptation will split King’s original 1986 novel into two movies. The first will follow the children being stalked by the titular shapeshifting monster, while the second will pick up decades later, when those same kids are confronting their same demons as adults.
Jaeden Lieberher, Finn Wolfhard, Jack Dylan Grazer, Wyatt Oleff, Chosen Jacobs, and Jeremy Ray Taylor lead the pack as The Losers Club which Skarsgård’s Pennywise and Owen Teague’s bullish Patrick Hocksetter will prey upon. Their adult counterparts have yet to be cast and it’s still unclear if they will prior to the first installment’s release.
Filming is currently underway in Port Hope, Ontario, which the production team has turned into Derry, Maine. Dread Central recently stumbled upon a number of juicy set photos, confirming the time frame (Summer 1989) and the appearance of one terrifying form of It (ahem, he’s carrying an axe). Take a look at a handful of shots below.
The first half of Stephen King’s It hits theaters September 8th, 2017.
Originally Posted by DJ's left nut:
And it's among the best early 90s adaptations of Stephen King books.
Watch "The Langoliers" for the unquestioned worst.
I liked The Stand , TommyKnockers and The Shining miniseries at the time. But they haven't aged well. Sometimes they show up on SyFy channel reruns [Reply]
Orig movie used to scare the crap out of me when I was a kid. About 6-7yrs old is when I think I first saw the movie. I don't know many people my age then who didn't get the crap scared out of them watching that movie. [Reply]
Originally Posted by CoMoChief:
Orig movie used to scare the crap out of me when I was a kid. About 6-7yrs old is when I think I first saw the movie. I don't know many people my age then who didn't get the crap scared out of them watching that movie.
Oh yeah. I read the book when I was like 9 or 10. Slept with my lights on for weeks. Great read. [Reply]
Originally Posted by New World Order:
We haven't seen the whole thing yet.
Remember, this is part 1
With as much grief that has been given to the stupid ass Spider in Part 2, I'm guessing the producers of this film will put extra effort into making it NOT suck.
I LOVE that this is being redone. I will only miss the acting of Tim Curry and Jonathan Brandis from the original. [Reply]
Originally Posted by Why Not?:
Oh yeah. I read the book when I was like 9 or 10. Slept with my lights on for weeks. Great read.
It suffers the same issue that most of King's books do, but to a lesser degree.
The last 20-30 pages are always serious "WTF?" moments for me. I haven't read it in probably 20 years, but didn't a damn turtle eat him? And if my memory serves, the deadlights did manifest themselves as a spider, correct? So the weirdness of the stupid spider in the show is a result of the source material going batshit.
I'm not sure why the hell King needed to make him into an pan-dimensional alien demon (or was it pan-dimensional demon alien...I got confused somewhere along the way) but then again, the guy is a hell of a lot better storyteller than I'll ever be so I guess I should defer. [Reply]
Originally Posted by DJ's left nut:
It suffers the same issue that most of King's books do, but to a lesser degree.
The last 20-30 pages are always serious "WTF?" moments for me. I haven't read it in probably 20 years, but didn't a damn turtle eat him? And if my memory serves, the deadlights did manifest themselves as a spider, correct? So the weirdness of the stupid spider in the show is a result of the source material going batshit.
I'm not sure why the hell King needed to make him into an pan-dimensional alien demon (or was it pan-dimensional demon alien...I got confused somewhere along the way) but then again, the guy is a hell of a lot better storyteller than I'll ever be so I guess I should defer.
IT was supposed to project himself as the victims greatest fear.
Maybe King's biggest fear as a child was the thought of a giant spider...
Originally Posted by DJ's left nut:
It suffers the same issue that most of King's books do, but to a lesser degree.
The last 20-30 pages are always serious "WTF?" moments for me. I haven't read it in probably 20 years, but didn't a damn turtle eat him? And if my memory serves, the deadlights did manifest themselves as a spider, correct? So the weirdness of the stupid spider in the show is a result of the source material going batshit.
I'm not sure why the hell King needed to make him into an pan-dimensional alien demon (or was it pan-dimensional demon alien...I got confused somewhere along the way) but then again, the guy is a hell of a lot better storyteller than I'll ever be so I guess I should defer.
King almost always seems to run out of gas the last 30 pages or so. See IT, The Dark Half, The Tommyknockers, Insomnia and a host of others. That lends to shitty endings for movies as well. It feels like he writes these awesome stories (and they are awesome) but is suddenly faced with the prospect of ending them...and just can't do it very well.
I thought 1963 was ended fantastically, and he even said that his son had a lot to do with that. [Reply]
Great idea to split it into two movies. The kid-centric story line can stand on its own and not be bogged down by the giant spider and awkward sex scene. [Reply]
