Horror movies have proved to be some of the biggest hits so far in 2017, but the biggest one of all is likely on the way.ITis finally going to adapt Stephen King’s novel for the big screen and by the looks of things, it is going to absolutely crush it at the box office. Director Andres Muschietti looks to have truly captured what fans love about the novel, but Stephen King wasn’t actually involved. Now the director has explained why that is the case.
Andres Muschietti recently spoke withColliderin honor ofIT, which is set to arrive in theaters on September 8. During the course of the conversation, Muschietti was asked about the decision to not have Stephen King involved and his reasoning is, well, reasonable. Here’s what he had to say about it.
“I’m very happymaking an adaptation, my interpretation of the story, and I would be thrilled to meet Stephen King, but there comes a time in the process where you start feeling good with your interpretation of it, and your contribution to the story, and it doesn’t feel like I want to discuss my ideas with him, you know? I don’t know. It feels like something that I would be embarrassed to tell him, you know? ‘Your words and your moments don’t work,’ right? [laughs].”
At some point, an adaptation has to become the thing that it is going to be. TheITmovie looks to be afaithful adaptation, but it will differ from Stephen King’s novel. Who knows what might have changed had the author been involved? Not to mention that he was pretty heavily involved withThe Dark Toweradaptation and that didn’t quite go the way that fans would have hoped. Beyond discussing Stephen King’s involvement withIT, or lack thereof, Andres Muschietti also talked quite a bit about thedifferent take on Pennywise the Clown, who is being played by Bill Skarsgard in this iteration.
“Yeah. Well, the fact that this entity has been around for thousands of years…I’m more drawn, I never, aesthetically, I don’t dig the 20th century clown. I think it looks cheap, and it’s too related to social events and stuff and circus and stuff, which circus is fine, but I’m more aesthetically attracted to the old time, like the 19th century clown. And given that this guy has been around for centuries, I wondered myself why, why not, having an upgrade that was 1800s.”
Andres Muschiettialso recently revealed that he isn’t a huge fan of the 1990 miniseries version ofIT, which starred Tim Curry as Pennywise and definitely had a 20th century clown look. So that explains why he decided to go in a different direction and, based on what we’ve seen, it is going to work out quite well. Let’s just hope thislong-awaited IT moviecan live up to the hype. The good news is that, even though Stephen King wasn’t involved, he has given his blessing and said the movie is great. We’ll have to wait and see what the critics have to say about it.
