Giving moviegoers another reason to avoid shower drains, New Line Cinema's adaptation of Stephen King's epic novel IT is still moving forward and could begin filming this year, according to a new update on the project that also reveals plans for the film's rating, story structure, and more.
Speaking with Collider's Steve "Frosty" Weintraub at DICE 2016, IT producer Roy Lee offered an update on the film's shooting schedule, confirmed that a new draft of the script is being worked on by Gary Doberman and director Andy Muschietti (Mama), and mentioned that the adaptation is still planned as a two-film project:
“It will hopefully be shooting later this year. We just got the California tax credit… Gary Doberman wrote the most recent draft working with Andy Muscetti, so it’s being envisioned as two movies.”
Cary Fukunaga (True Detective) and Chase Palmer wrote a previous two-film draft of the screenplay before Fukunaga departed the project last spring. With the multiple movie structure still in place, Lee reveals that the continued plan is to have one movie focus on The Losers' Club as kids with the subsequent one following them as adults (presumably to return to Derry to fight the ancient evil that is IT):
"We’re taking it and making the movie from the point of view of the kids, and then making another movie from the point of view of the adults, that could potentially then be cut together like the novel."
Lee also revealed that the IT adaptation will be R-rated and that the final draft of the script is nearing completion.
King's IT was previously adapted as a two-part TV movie that was directed by Tommy Lee Wallace and debuted on ABC in 1990. To read Collider's complete update on IT, visit:
For those unfamiliar with Stephen King's IT, here's the 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.”
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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