Warning: spoilers ahead for IT! Read ahead at your own risk!
With IT, director Andy Muschietti has done something remarkable for the horror genre. Not only has the film found an audience with die-hard horror aficionados, but it has also gone on to achieve massive mainstream success with typical moviegoers as well. Much of this has to do with telling a balanced story, which means a few necessary cuts had to be made along the way. As it turns out, one such cut scene involved a significant change to Bill's showdown with Pennywise. IT star Jaeden Lieberher explained:
I did have this scene where I climb up the tower at the end. When I'm chasing after Georgie, I climb the tower and I'm at a one-on-one confrontation with Pennywise and then I say that I'm not afraid of him, that none of the losers are afraid of him, and that's how we beat him. But they took those lines and put toward the end, right after our big fight. So I had this whole thing where Bill Skarsgard is grabbing me and pushing me off the ledge, and I had to wear this harness. That was a more difficult scene.
Those of you who have seen IT already know that this isn't how The Losers Club beats Pennywise in the final cut of the movie. Instead of a one-on-one showdown between Bill and the demonic clown, the film instead culminates in a fight involving the entire Losers Club -- although Bill arguably remains the focal point of the fight. In the end, per Jaeden Lieberher's comments to Variety, the lines used for that cut sequence were transferred to the final confrontation to tie everything together.
Of course, there's a relatively easy case to be made that IT's final ending works because of how it incorporates every member of The Losers Club into the fight against Pennywise. Instead of focusing solely on Bill's journey to overcome his fear of losing Georgie, the film instead has every kid -- from Beverly Marsh to Eddie Kaspbrak -- overcoming their fear to rob him of his power.
Fans that have kept up with the IT universe likely already know that this is one of many sequences to get the ax (or change in some way) over the course of the film's development. In fact, in his adaptation of Stephen King's beloved novel, Andy Muschietti was pretty liberal with the changes he wanted to make, whether those changes involved altering the monsters that Pennywise turned into or cutting the infamous orgy scene. The result is a story that seems to stand on its own merit and paves the way for the eventual sequel to similarly tell a unique story about friendship and fear.
IT is now in theaters and making a bonafide killing at the box office in the process. Looking ahead to the rest of this year, take a look at CinemaBlend's handy guide for all of the upcoming horror movies that we're dying to see, and take a look at our comprehensive 2017 movie premiere guide to see what else this year has in store!
