It's going to be a big ask for the upcoming feature film remake of It to match the 1990 mini-series adaptation of Stephen King's novel that terrified a generation so vividly. Those in control of the upcoming horror film have given themselves the best chance of doing so, though, by making It R-rated. Producer Dan Lin has now admitted that it was a complete no-brainer that director Andres Mucschietti would be given free reign to go as gory, dark, and scary as possible, because if they didn't, it would be doing the source material a disservice.
Dan Lin recently made this admission to Collider while out promoting The LEGO Batman Movie, his most recent credit as a producer. Conversation soon turned to the It remake, though, especially as information regarding the film has been at a premium. But Lin was delighted to reveal that It will indeed be an R-rated movie, insisting that a film with Pennywise The Dancing Clown at the heart of it really couldn't be anything else. Lin explained:
If you're going to make an 'Rated-R movie, you have to fully embrace what it is, and you have to embrace the source material. It is a scary clown that's trying to kill kids. So of course that's going to be a rated-R movie.
Of course, it's hardly surprising that It is going to be rated R, as that's pretty much par for the course with adaptations of Stephen King novels. The likes of The Shining, Carrie, Misery, Cujo and The Mist have each terrified viewers as much as they have enthralled them because of the freedom given to them by the rating.
Studios don't feel the need to enforce a PG-13 rating on films nowadays, too. They previously believed it was necessary to make films accessible to as wide an audience as possible so that they could then potentially pull in more money. However, by doing this, they damaged the integrity of films, especially those that were based on beloved horror characters and properties.
The $783.1 million success of Deadpool proved that, if done right, an R-rated movie has the capacity to make much more money from a demographic that's genuinely satisfied than a wider audience that's just not interested. Just one look at Tim Curry's Pennywise The Dancing Clown in action from the 1990 ABC mini-series shows that a big-screen version simply had to be R-rated, otherwise he'd have been mundane.
Bill Skarsgard is the man tasked with trying to emulate Tim Curry's performance, and this sneaky peek at his version of Pennywise proves he's off to a very good start.
We'll get to see if he can emulate Curry, and if Andres Muschietti can eclipse the mini-series, when It is finally released later this year on September 8.
