It was a beloved horror film of mine while I was growing up, and by beloved I mean it terrified me immensely and made me never look at clowns the same way again (in hindsight, I was way too young to be watching it.). The Stephen King novel that the mini-series was based on is even scarier and one that continues to draw in new readers despite its age, so its remake continues to draw keen interest from fans.
We’ve been hearing news of the remake for a while now, but not seeing too much more progress on the actual development of the film. Collider has managed to drag out a few more details on the progress made with this movie in speaking to producer Roy Lee, which offers some interesting news on what they are trying to do.
The first is that they are looking to make the film into an R-rated picture and split it into two movies, with the first story telling the story of the group of kids called “The Losers Club” and how they are tormented by Pennywise the clown/alien spider thing, and the second film taking place several decades later when they return as adults to take on their tormentor Pennywise. This is a similar approach and structure that the 1980’s mini-series followed as the film contains a lot of detail and it is difficult to fit it all into one, even if the book didn’t follow that exact narrative structure. Lee does however indicate that they may still mash this film into one combined film and more closely layer it to the timeline of the novel, if it will work out better when editing.
The other interesting info to come out of their chat was that Gary Dauberman (Annabelle) will be doing a page one re-write of their initial screenplay by Cary Fukunaga (True Detective, Beasts of No Nation). While this doesn’t say much, it shows that they are perhaps still trying to figure out the best approach to the film and haven’t quite figured it out yet. I was personally looking forward to seeing what Fukunaga could do with the script though, as his style is not typical of the horror genre and I would’ve thought he would offer something a lot more deeper than what we are likely to get from Dauberman. Hopefully we are proven wrong by this decision though. Andy Muschietti (Mama) though is still on-board to direct the film/both films however. If they do decide to release this as two films, we do not know how they plan to stagger its release schedule, whether it be 6 months or a year between the two pictures
I’m not sure if any of that news makes you more or less excited for this upcoming remake, but until we actually here more on its production and actually get to see a trailer or two from this remake, I am remaining highly skeptical. It’s got a strong legacy to live up to before we can be certain it will turn a new generation of people into clown haters for life. Now just remember, to NOT let your kids watch this one when it does come out.
Last Updated: February 23, 2016
