New Line Takes on Stephen King’s IT Movie

The same film studio that unleashed the bladed boogeyman, Freddy Krueger, onto the world will now be bringing Pennywise the Clown to the big screen. Known by horror hounds as the "House that Freddy Built" from its 1980's heydays of distributing the A Nightmare on Elm Street films, it was recently announced that New Line Cinema is taking over the duties of overseeing the creation of the long-awaited IT movie, based on the Stephen King novel of the same name.

We previously reported that Warner Bros. was looking to develop a two-film adaptation of Stephen King's 1000+ page novel. And as THR reports, that is technically still the case, as Warner Bros. acquired New Line in 2008. The reason for IT making the studio shift lies in New Line's increasing role in taking on horror projects like The Conjuring. It's a familiar fit for New Line, a studio that established itself on horror films like Alone in the Dark (1982) and A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984).

Cary Fukunaga (True Detective) is still set to direct the adaptation, with the plan of having the first film center on a group of friends who make up the Losers' Club, with the second film featuring the Losers' Club as adults who have grown apart but must reunite to defeat the ancient evil of IT once again.

For those that haven’t read the novel, here is the official plot synopsis:

“A promise made twenty-eight years ago calls seven adults to reunite in Derry, Maine, where as teenagers they battled an evil creature that preyed on the city’s children. Unsure that their Losers Club had vanquished the creature all those years ago, the seven had vowed to return to Derry if IT should ever reappear. Now, children are being murdered again and their repressed memories of that summer return as they prepare to do battle with the monster lurking in Derry’s sewers once more.”