If anyone can turn Stephen King’s disappointing sequel to The Shining into a decent movie, it’s the director of last year’s surprisingly great Gerald’s Game.
Deadpool might need to watch his back. IT, the latest adaptation of Stephen King’s horror epic, just broke one of the R-rated box office champ’s records — and is primed to break a couple more before the end of the weekend. It’s doubtful that Pennywise will come close to overtaking the Merc With a Mouth’s massive box office haul, but it’s quite a win for the new horror film from Andy Muschietti, which already has a sequel in the works for 2019.
One of the most challenging parts of any Stephen King adaptation is walking that fine line between childhood fears and adult terror. It is a perfect example: how do you take images meant to be frightening to 12 and 13-year-olds and adjust them for an adult audience? This is the formula that King has used to make him one of the most successful authors of all time, but stepping outside of the characters’ heads — and behind a movie camera — only ramps up the challenge of balancing tone just right. That’s why it’s been so heartening to hear It director Andy Muschietti say all the right things in pre-release interviews. For better or worse, it sounds like he really gets it.
If you head to your local theater next week to check out Annabelle: Creation, you’ll be treated to an extra serving — a small appetizer or horrors d’ouevres (sorry), if you will — of phobia-inducing terror. A special four-minute sneak peek of the new adaptation of Stephen King’s IT is reportedly set to screen before the Annabelle prequel, just in case you needed a side of creepy clown with your order of creepy doll.
Just yesterday, we noted the release of a new trailer for the upcoming re-adaptation of Stephen King’s seminal killer-clown novel It. Things seemed pretty normal, at first brush: terrified kids, children’s entertainer straight out of your worst nightmares, eerie red balloon, the whole nine yards. But sharp-eyed viewers have now noted a little Easter egg squirreled away for a split-second in one shot near the end of the trailer. Don’t blink or you’ll miss it, “it” referring in this instance to “IT.”