Director Cary Fukunaga (best known for his work on the first season of HBO’s ‘True Detective’) is working on his modern day adaptation of Stephen King’s ‘It,’ and recently spoke with a Brazilian newspaper called ‘O Globo’ about the progress he’s made, the search for the perfect actor to play Pennywise, Stephen King’s blessing, and how he eventually had to scrap the original script and start from scratch.
“I’ve been in this project for about five years…I had already read versions of the script but nothing felt right. Everybody tried to put too much into it, telling it from the perspective of the adult and the child in a two hour movie. It didn’t fit. So I decided to throw it all away and start from scratch…This will be my first movie in the US and I’m still trying to find the perfect guy to play Pennywise…It’s really good to know Stephen [King] likes what we did. We (Fukunaga and writers David Kajganich and Chase Palmer) changed names, dates (the story is originally set in the 60′s) dynamics, but the spirit is similar to what he’d like to see in cinemas, I think.”
Sounds like he has an interesting take on the film, and really wants to keep the story serious and scary, and veer away from any campy feeling that often accompany remakes of this kind. It seems the biggest difference so far will the the era the film takes place in, as King’s original story took place in the 1960’s.
For those unaware, the original story centered around 7 fringe children fighting an evil demon currently in the form of a child-killing clown named Pennywise the Dancing Clown. Then, 30 years later, the kids are called back to fight a resurfaced Pennywise. Fukunaga’s new version will probably still feature the time split, only this time with the present being in the 2010’s, and the past probably being the 1980’s or 1990’s.
What do you think of Pennywise’s return? Would you want to see a new version of him on the big screen? Let us know in the comments below.
Source: Bloody-Disgusting
