At the risk of getting too far ahead of ourselves, 2019 is beginning to fill up fast.
This week alone, we’ve caught wind of new developments for Wonder Woman 2 (Patty Jenkins directs!), Hellboy (David Harbour wows!) and Star Wars: Episode IX, which has now called in J.J. Abrams to replace the ousted Colin Trevorrow. Another project that finds itself in the company of greatness is It: Chapter 2, New Line’s horror sequel that’s poised to revisit Derry, Maine 27 years after the fact.
Placing a laser focus on the Losers Club as adults, Andy Muschietti and his team – namely co-writer Barbara Muschietti and seasoned producer Roy Lee – always planned to adapt Stephen King’s masterclass as a two-part film saga, meaning the final showdown between the Losers and Pennywise has been reserved for the second, conclusive chapter. That’s something Roy Lee addressed in a new interview with Yahoo! Movies (via Screen Rant), hinting that “the other dimension – the other side – was something that we could introduce in the second part.”
While reflecting on what made the cut for Chapter 1, Lee conceded that he always wanted to leave something major for the final confrontation with Pennywise – so long as it doesn’t send the production budget spiraling out of control.
I also wanted to leave something for the second half, so I didn’t want to get in trouble with that – going into the macro verse or that transdimensional stuff. There’s another movie to expand into that. Also there’s a physical truth that it’s a movie that has a budget and I didn’t want to get into a depiction of a realm that fucks up our budget, the creation of a world that would suck up half our budget and would have to sacrifice a lot of things.
It’s also worth nothing that It was made off the back of a $35 million budget, so there’s a good chance New Line will want to minimize costs going into the 2019 sequel.
Now at $209 million and climbing, Andy Muschietti’s horror redo is a box office sensation – and with its taut script and chilling scares, it bloody well deserves to be. Expect Chapter 2 to clamber out of the sewers sometime in 2019.
