The Director Of ‘It’ Wants To Tackle Another Fucked Up Stephen King Classic

The history of Stephen King adaptions has been a spotty one, going from the good (The ShiningSalem’s Lot) to the bad (almost all of the other ones) but the upcoming It adaption looks like it could be pretty decent. The source material is about 400 pages too long and was very clearly written in a cocaine haze, but there’s a nugget of something good there.

And, y’know, clowns. Here’s the trailer, in case you missed your mates crapping their dacks about it on your Facebook feed.

Well, before anyone’s actually had the chance to see whether it’s good or not, director Andy Muschietti has set his sights on another King adaptation. He’s keen on spooky resurrection horror Pet Sematary. (Which, in an irrelevant anecdote, scared the shit out of me when I read it aged thirteen.)

“We’re huge fans of Pet Sematary,” Muschietti told the Toronto Sun. “If we can get our hands on that and do the Pet Sematary we want to do, that will be something. One day, maybe.”

Pet Sematary has been adapted before, in a 1989 film directed by Mary Lambert. It had its moments, and it has picked up a bit of a cult fanbase in the years since its release (I personally really like it) but the concept is so good that it might be worth revisiting.

In his interview with The Sun, Muschietti also spoke a little on how his version of Pennywise the Clown differs from the schlocky portrayal by Tim Curry in the original It miniseries.

Andy and I read the book and we didn’t see the TV version with Tim Curry until much, much later. So for us, our imagining of Pennywise was different. It wasn’t the Tim Curry version, which was fantastic and super scary. But to us, Pennywise was a different character.

I think our interpretation presents a vaster creature. It’s not, ‘OK, here’s this scary clown.’ The way we’re doing it is much more dangerous. Also, we get a hint of what Pennywise’s Achilles’ heel is. I don’t like supervillains, or superheroes that are completely infallible because that’s very boring. You want to feel that there’s something to crack. Also it’s good to understand how Pennywise happens. There will be more of that in the sequel.

Clowns, hey. Not a fan of ’em.

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