Pennywise is Back: New Photos From the set of It
Director Andy Muschietti’s Instagram page has kept fans in the loop on his progress on It, his adaptation of Stephen King’s seminal horror novel starring Pennywise the Clown, the child-eating monster that is one of King’s most grotesque, and compelling, villains. Per usual in a King story, the action takes place in small town Maine (Derry, to be precise), where every 30 years a nameless monster appears in the sewer system and, voila, children go missing. With the first trailer due tomorrow, Warner Bros. has released the first glimpse of Pennywise and the Losers Club (which includes Stranger Things’ Finn Wolfhard as Richie Tozier, and Midnight Special’s Jaeden Lieberher as Bill Denbrough), a group of seven children in Derry who are motivated by the loss of Bill’s little brother, and other encounters with the monster, to fight Pennywise.
Wyatt Oleff (from left), Finn Wolfhard, Chosen Jacobs, Jaeden Lieberher, Sophia Lillis and Jeremy Ray Taylor play the heroic kids of 'It.' (Photo: Warner Bros. Pictures)
Muschietti told USA Today that he took inspiration from a notion in King’s massive novel that Pennywise might be eating children because that’s what he thinks monsters must do.
“It’s a tiny bit of information, but that sticks with you so much,” Muschietti told USA Today. “Maybe it is real as long as children believe in it. And in a way, Pennywise’s character is motivated by survival. In order to be alive in the imagination of children, he has to keep killing.”
Courtesy Warner Bros.
It was last adapted in 1990 as a TV miniseries that did a very solid job of giving children nightmares. Tim Curry played Pennywise in that version, and was masterful in the role. Muschietti told USA Today that Bill Skarsgard’s version might be even more unsettling.
“It’s established that Pennywise takes the shape of your worst fear,” Muschietti says. “He doesn’t have a steady behavior, he doesn’t expose how he thinks, and that’s what makes him really unpredictable.”
The red balloon signals Pennywise's proximity, turning an innocent emblem of childhood into one of nightmares and terror. A sequel is being planned for when the surviving kids are grown up—no doubt dealing with the PTSD of having come toe-to-big-shoe with Pennywise in the first place.
It appears in theaters on September 8, 2017.
Featured Image: Brooke Palmer © 2016 WARNER BROS. ENTERTAINMENT INC. AND RATPAC-DUNE ENTERTAINMENT LLC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
