The story surrounding both Cary Fukunaga's exit from Stephen King's It and so too Will Poulter's exit is an interesting one for another day.
Nevertheless, New Line Cinema is convinced that it can push ahead with It and scare a new generation and decimate the clowning job market in the process. With that in mind, it's brought in Mama director Andy Muschietti and Hemlock Grove's Bill Skarsgard - he of Stellan and Alexander Skarsgard relation - to join the fun and frolics.
Skarsgard will join the cast as Pennywise The Clown, originally made famous by Tim Curry in the '90s TV movie. The story will be split into two films, with the first one dealing with the children defeating Pennywise for the first time whilst the second focuses on his return and the children now grown to adults. This idea was originally brought up by Fukunaga and, from what we can tell, has seemed to stick with the current regime.
So, thoughts? It says a lot that Cary Fukunaga walked away from this, especially considering that he spent several years developing it from nothing. Likewise, Will Poulter walking away from the role also says a lot about it, too. Sure, it might just be because the search for a new director ran on too long and Poulter had to sign up for something else instead, but surely if he was committed to the role, he'd have stayed on. Right?
Bringing on Andy Muschietti to direct is, well, fine. Mama was fine for what it was, but there's no way anyone can objectively call it an excellent horror film. It was just a decent one that was greatly helped by a pre-fame Jessica Chastain and Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, nothing else.
Cary Fukunaga has a real knack for creating unbearable tension and incredible visuals. All you need to do is look at the first season of True Detective to see what can be done. It's a real shame he walked away from this as he was the main reason we were excited about it. Now? It just looks like another standard-issue horror reboot.
No release date has been set for It, but expect it sometime in 2017.
Via THR