Posted by When I wrote this article, in January 2016, the new adaptation of Stephen King’s IT had just passed from director Cary Fukunaga to Andy Muschietti. The film came out in September 2017, with Bill Skarsgård as Pennywise, and grossed over $700 million, becoming the highest-grossing horror film ever. It Chapter Two followed in 2019 and, in 2025, the prequel series It: Welcome to Derry on HBO.
The remake of IT
It’s been a while now since we have heard about the remake of IT, based on Stephen King’s 1986 novel, which had already been adapted in 1990 in the famous TV miniseries starring Tim Curry as Pennywise.
The project started in 2009 at Warner Bros. with David Kajganich as director, but in June 2012 it passed to Cary Fukunaga, who had worked on adapting the script with Chase Palmer.
For those who don’t know, the plot of the book, and of the miniseries although adapted, is this: in the small town of Derry, Maine, a group of outcast children, the Losers’ Club, has to fight an evil force that appears to them as a clown and awakens every 27 years. Many years later, as adults, they will have to fight it again.
The new script
After working on it for several years, and after discarding various scripts that did not seem right to him, Cary Fukunaga decided to start almost from scratch. He revealed there would be important changes, although the two-film structure would be kept, starting with moving the story to a different period.
In the novel the children’s part is set in 1957-1958 and the adults’ part in 1984-1985, while the miniseries moved them to 1960 and 1990. The new script, instead, set the children’s story in the 1980s and the adults’ in the present day.
This would certainly have meant big, unavoidable changes. For the role of Pennywise several actors were considered, including Ben Mendelsohn, who passed because New Line wanted him to take a big pay cut. The choice then fell on Will Poulter.
The director’s departure
Unfortunately, though, in May 2015 Fukunaga announced he would no longer direct the IT remake. He gave no clear reasons for his decision, but said he had disagreements with the producers at New Line.
According to him, he wanted to make a different film, high-profile and with modern characters, but found no cooperation and decided to leave.
We don’t know exactly which parts of the script were disputed, but Stephen King reportedly read it and liked it. In June the film was handed to Argentine director Andy (Andrés) Muschietti, who also intended to make it in two parts.
How it turned out
The first film, It, was released in the United States on September 8, 2017, directed by Muschietti and written by Chase Palmer, Cary Fukunaga and Gary Dauberman. As Fukunaga had planned, the children’s story was moved to the late 1980s. Pennywise was not played by Will Poulter, who had to drop out due to scheduling conflicts after the change of director, but by Swede Bill Skarsgård.
The film was a huge commercial and critical success: it grossed more than $700 million worldwide and became, unadjusted for inflation, the highest-grossing horror film in history.
The sequel, It Chapter Two, with James McAvoy, Jessica Chastain and Bill Hader as the adult Losers, was released in September 2019, set 27 years later, in 2016. It grossed $473 million, but received cooler reviews, mostly because of its length. And on October 26, 2025 the prequel series It: Welcome to Derry arrived on HBO, with Skarsgård once again playing the clown.
So, my question back then was whether it was possible to remake a cult classic like IT without criticism and comparisons with the miniseries. The criticism and comparisons came, but audiences clearly loved it.
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