The new film adaptation of Stephen King's epic 1986 novel, IT, is currently coming to life in Canada, but producer Dan Lin was recently in Beverly Hills for the Television Critics Association press event, and he spoke with Collider about New Line Cinema's IT movie, offering a status update on where they are in the filming process and discussing how Bill Skarsgård impressed them in his audition for Pennywise.
Talking with Collider's Haleigh Foutch, Lin shared that the IT film has a Stranger Things vibe, and that filming up to this point has mostly consisted of the kids who make up the lovable Losers' Club, but that's about to change:
"Each kid, like a Goonies or Stand By Me, has a very specific personality and they’re forming the Losers' Club obviously. And now finally the evil force is coming into our movie. We’ve spent a few months getting the kids to bond and now they’re going to fight this evil, scary clown."
Lin went on to discuss Skarsgård's audition for the team behind the new IT, which he said, "frankly freaked us out":
"His build is really interesting. he’s really tall and lanky, and feels a little clown like in his movement. When he came in — we had a lot of different actors read, and when he came in he had a different spin on the character that got us really excited."
IT is planned as a two-movie adaptation, with the first film following the Losers’ Club as kids facing evil incarnate in the small town of Derry in the 1980s, with the second movie expected to focus on the Losers’ Club as adults once again tasked with defeating the malevolent entity that haunts their hometown… and their souls.
Andy Muschietti (Mama) is directing IT from a screenplay he wrote with Gary Doberman. Dan Lin, Roy Lee, Seth Grahame-Smith, and David Katzenberg are on board as producers, with Jon Silk executive producing the project.
In addition to Skarsgård, the cast for the new IT movie includes Finn Wolfhard, Jaeden Lieberher, Jack Dylan Grazer, Wyatt Oleff, Chosen Jacobs, Jeremy Ray Taylor, Owen Teague, Sophia Lillis, and Nicholas Hamilton.
IT is scheduled for a September 8th, 2017 release from Warner Bros. Stay tuned to Daily Dead for more details. To read more of Lin's comments on IT, visit Collider.
Teaser image from New Line Cinema / Marco Grob via EW:
Raised on a steady diet of R.L. Stine’s Goosebumps books and Are You Afraid of the Dark?, Derek has been fascinated with fear since he first saw ForeverWare being used on an episode of Eerie, Indiana.
When he’s not writing about horror as the Senior News Reporter for Daily Dead, Derek can be found daydreaming about the Santa Carla Boardwalk from The Lost Boys or reading Stephen King and Brian Keene novels.
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