Andres Muschietti's adaptation of IT is tracking to be a huge hit for Warner Bros., with some box office forecasters calling for a $60 million opening weekend. A sequel seems inevitable, and those who have read Stephen King's source novel know that a parallel story will follow the adult versions of the characters that we meet in the upcoming movie. Only, the director now clarifies that IT 2 (or whatever it ends up being called) won't focus solely on the adult versions of the Losers' Club. Instead, Muschietti says:
There will be a dialogue between the two timelines. Which is something that I love from the book. So it's not just the [Losers' Club as] adults, we're going to come back to 1989.
This makes sense, on so many levels. Stephen King's eponymous novel IT isn't divided up into two clean halves. The stories of the main characters confronting their fears in the sewers beneath Derry weave and interconnect, so while we understand why Andres Muschietti broke his story into just the young Losers for the first book, shuttling the kids to the trash heap for a sequel that favors the adults makes little sense.
Also, and this is very important, the buzz that we have been hearing on IT is that the kids have incredible chemistry, and the bond shared by the Losers' Club is part of the reason why IT works as well as it does. If audiences come to love these young performers in the way that we believe they will, then casual audiences will want to se more of these characters in the sequel. Even if Warner Bros. is able to land the major A-listers that the kids want to see playing them in the sequel. So I'm glad the director tells Yahoo he plans on using more of these kids. That's a win.
IT takes place in two time periods, when kids band together to confront the ultimate evil, and then must reunite years later to readdress the issue after the threat returns. Ignoring the adult storyline isn't the only major change Andres Muschiettit is making to his adaptation. As we reported earlier, there is a component of interdimensional storytelling that it pivotal to IT, and it likely is being saved for the second chapter. Now, we just need WB to go ahead and greenlight the sequel (we know it's happening!) so that proper plans can be made and casting can get underway.
IT opens everywhere on Sept. 8. Be sure to catch up on our rundown of upcoming Horror movies, as well as the full slat of 2017 Movies, so you don't miss a thing.
