If you were eagerly looking forward to seeing Cary Fukunaga’s two-part feature film adaptation of Stephen King’s IT in theaters – or at all – we’ve got some bad news for you. Not only has the True Detective director abandoned the production of IT just three weeks before the scheduled start of production, but Stephen King has already tweeted the disappointing news that the whole film is dead.
The remake of IT may be dead–or undead–but we’ll always have Tim Curry. He’s still floating down in the sewers of Derry.
— Stephen King (@StephenKing) May 25, 2015
The ambitious adaptation of Stephen King’s 1986 novel was set to star Will Poulter (We’re the Millers) as Pennywise the Clown, the supernatural bogeyman of Derry, MN who tormented young children with their greatest fears. Like the 1990s TV mini-series, the film was scheduled to be released in two parts, one featuring the cast as children, the other as adults who return to Derry to finish their fight with Pennywise once and for all.
Hollywood Reporter claims that Cary Fukunaga’s departure was over budgetary disputes. New Line Cinema had green lit the first film with a $30 million budget, but Fukunaga’s most recent drafts of the screenplay would have cost significantly more. The second film in the series was slated to be a more expensive production.
Productions fall apart all the time in the studio system, but the fact that this adaptation of Stephen King’s popular novel came so close to going in front of the cameras is bound to be frustrating for Fukunaga, and especially Will Poulter, who seemed to be in a position to dramatically refocus his career by playing against type as one of horror’s most iconic villains. CraveOnline wishes them the best.
William Bibbiani is the editor of CraveOnline’s Film Channel and the host of The B-Movies Podcast. Follow him on Twitter at @WilliamBibbiani.
