In previous films, he's played characters who've elicited laughs from viewers, but soon Will Poulter will likely be sharing his own laugh onscreen as Pennywise the clown in the upcoming two-film adaptation of Stephen King’s IT from Warner Bros.' New Line Cinema.
According to Variety, Will Poulter (We're the Millers, The Maze Runner) is in negotiations to play Pennywise in the two-film adaptation of Stephen King's epic 1986 horror novel, IT. Pre-production on the first film is currently underway with Cary Fukunaga (True Detective) in the director's chair, working from a screenplay he wrote with Chase Palmer. Filming is expected to begin this summer. Fukunaga is currently only slated to direct the first IT film, though both movies will work from the script he wrote with Palmer.
As King fans remember, IT was adapted for the screen once before in 1990, as a two-part miniseries that aired on ABC. Tim Curry (The Rocky Horror Picture Show) played Pennywise in the miniseries. The choice of Poulter for the role of Pennywise may take many off-guard, as he's a relatively young actor, but that's exactly what the folks at New Line were looking for: a younger version of the crazed clown. Before deciding to go that route with the role, however, New Line personnel considered Mark Rylance and Ben Mendelsohn for the juicy part.
The first of the new IT films is expected to focus on the members of the close-knit Losers Club as kids, with the second movie set to follow them as adults who have grown apart but must reunite in Derry, Maine, to once again stand up to the ancient evil (which we now know will be played by Poulter) that lurks in their hometown. Pouter is the first announced cast member for the new IT movies. Stay tuned to Daily Dead for further updates on the new adaptation of IT, which was given King's blessing after he read the script.
“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.”
Will Poulter in The Maze Runner:
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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