After the astronomical success of It last year, it was inevitable that some coked-up Hollywood exec would be sweatily writing out cheques for the sequel as soon as the opening weekend figures came across their desk. Here’s our first piece of casting intel for said sequel: it looks like Jessica Chastain is in talks to play adult Beverly.
As you might recall, the first It was about a bunch of kids fighting an interdimensional monster who liked to take the form of Pennywise the Clown and kill children. It was a surprise runaway hit after a frankly quite masterful marketing campaign, and ended up as the highest-grossing horror film of all time, pulling in over $700 million at the box office globally.
A sequel was always on the cards, anyway: they only covered half of the Stephen King novel in the first instalment, leaving an entire major plotline – the kids returning to Derry as adults to kill the clown again – open for another film. A ‘part two’, if you will.
Director Andy Muschietti, who is back for the sequel, has been teasing the fact he wanted Chastain as adult Beverly ever since the first film. According to sources speaking to Variety, she’s currently in negotiations to play the role.
It wouldn’t be the first time Chastain and Muschietti have worked together – she also starred in his first feature Mama, which was based on his incredibly terrifying short film of the same name. Seriously, I urge you to watch that if you haven’t. You can see why Hollywood took an interest.
Chastain is the first big star attached to the It sequel. Muschietti apparently wants the child stars of the first film to return for flashback scenes. We’ll see how this goes sooner rather than later: the film is scheduled for release in September 2019.
