Earlier this year, True Detective director Cary Fukunaga left New Line’s upcoming remake of Stephen King’s It. Entertainment Weekly recently caught up with the filmmaker and questioned him on his decision to depart the troubled production.
“It’s never easy, Chase [Palmer] and I had been working on that script for probably three years. There was a lot of our childhood and our experience in it”. When asked what was the main reason for leaving behind a project he had spent so long in developing, he said that “ultimately, we and New Line have to agree on the kind of movie we want to make, and we just wanted to make different movies“.
It has long been rumoured that New Line was splitting the story into two distinct films with the first serving as an origin story for Pennywise (played by Tim Curry in the original mini-series) and The Losers Club, showing how the inter-dimensional predatory life-form met the group of kids and the start of a cat and mouse battle between the two factions.
It is believed that the sequel would deal with the aftermath of the clubs battle with Pennywise and pick up with the remaining characters (if any survive) later in their life, creating two distinct films in tone and content. With the former working as a camp fire type ghost story with young actors and later being closer to a slasher film with randy teens akin to Wes Cravens A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984).
In the interview Fukunaga didn’t make it clear if the two-film model was a cause for his departure but that the split between himself and the studio was a mutual decision. “It’s like a relationship: you can try to make the other person who you want them to be, but it’s impossible really to change. You just have to work”.
Production is set to begin with Mama director Andy Muschietti currently in charge of the project with Will Poulter (Son of Rambow, The Maze Runner, We’re The Millers) as the film’s Pennywise. With production yet to begin it may be awhile before Pennywise creates a whole new generation of kids with Coulrophobia. I hate that damn clown.
#Peace.Love.IT
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