The saga of the attempt to update the film adaptation of Stephen King’s It finally looks set to end, as producer Roy Lee confirms plans to shoot the new movie later in 2016. The powerhouse producer of titles such as The Lego Movie and the How To Train Your Dragon films, as well as horror fare The Ring, The Grudge and Poltergeist, has been working on a remake of the infamous 1990 TV miniseries for some time, but it seems that the pieces are now falling into place.
Initially, Cary Fukunaga of True Detective fame was on board to co-write and direct the new adaptation, but ultimately departed the project, citing creative differences. Those differences were rumoured to centre on the type of MPAA rating the project would be aiming for. Now, however, Andy Muscietti – the director of 2013’s Mama – is in the director’s chair, and the project is back on track and headed for an R rating.
Roy Lee recently provided an update on the film to Collider:
“It will hopefully be shooting later this year. We just got the California tax credit… Gary Doberman wrote the most recent draft working with Andy Muscetti, so it’s being envisioned as two movies.
“It is very close to the source material in one way but very different if you look at it as a literary piece of work… We’re taking it and making the movie from the point of view of the kids, and then making another movie from the point of view of the adults, that could potentially then be cut together like the novel. But it’s gonna be a really fun way of making this movie.
“We are very close to turning in the final draft of the script. It’s mainly working on it for budgeting purposes to make it fit within the budget that we have.”
These details confirm that the script has been considerably re-worked since Cary Fukunaga’s tenure on the project, and that the approach being taken by the filmmakers is a flexible one. This will be important for this particular story, since Stephen King’s It is a complex piece of fiction. It seems from Roy Lee’s comments that this new version will perhaps be sticking closer to the source material than the 1990 TV miniseries – which presented a somewhat ‘toned down’ version of the tale. We will now finally get to see for ourselves, some time in 2017.