Andres Muschietti

Andres Muschietti is fast becoming a highly demanded director in Hollywod, especially after what looks like a big success with his It movie. Muschietti has signed on to direct a live-action adaptation of anime Robotech, and has said he wants to do Stephen King’s Pet Sematary next after he’s finished with It. Which might be sooner rather than later, as the director plans to start working on It 2 before touching anything else.

If the early buzz is to be believed, fans couldn’t get any more excited for the upcoming adaptation of Stephen King’s It. Not only does the film have one of the most-watched movie trailers of all time, and is also projected to make over $60 million in its opening weekend, it’s also coming into theaters riding a wave of impressive reviews. And somehow, the movie has done all of this without tipping its hand on some of the most impressive scares. All of this for an R-rated horror movie about children being jeopardized. We’ve come a long way since the original miniseries, America.

Historically speaking, Stephen King adaptations tend to be better when the master of literary horror isn’t involved — which may bode well for Andy Muschetti’s new adaptation of IT, as the author recently revealed that he did not participate in the development of his iconic tale of terror. For his part, Muschietti apparently had his reasons, and the way he tells it, they seem like pretty good ones.

The latest stab at a Locke & Key TV series hit a snag losing Doctor Strange director Scott Derrickson, but progress rolls on with its first official star. The Conjuring 2 alum Frances O’Connor will lead the latest adaptation in a key (well, Locke) role.

As a die-hard Stephen King fan, I have a theory: we need one or two filmmakers who truly understand his work to adapt all of his films. Take Frank Darabont. The writer-director has worked on three of King’s most successful adaptations - The Shawshank Redemption, The Green Mile, and The Mist - and seems to understand the world in King’s head better than any five other filmmakers put together. Given the current wave of ‘80s nostalgia, we’re likely to see more King books be adapted to film, and finding a cinematic King Whisperer would go a long way to avoiding middling adaptations like The Dark Tower.

Something fishy is going on with the two Stephen King movies coming out this year. At least, their runtimes aren’t exactly what you’d expect. It was recently revealed that The Dark Tower clocks in at a lean 95 minutes long, and now we’re hearing that Andres Muschietti’s It is considerably longer than two hours: approximately 135 minutes.

From an androgynous angel hellbent on revenge to the self-loathing mother of a sociopath, a despicable dictator, the CEO of a pharmachemical corporation and pretty much everything in between — there’s almost literally nothing that Tilda Swinton cannot do. So when the filmmakers behind IT revealed that they gave serious thought to casting one of the most chameleonic and creatively-minded actors of our time in the role of a sinister supernatural clown, it wasn’t exactly surprising.

You know what they say: Everything is better with friends. That includes fighting an evil demonic clown who lives in town sewer system and has an affinity for Victorian era garb. Wardrobe preference notwithstanding, Pennywise is still pretty darn terrifying, especially if you’re already scared of clowns — in which case, you might want to avoid the new trailer for IT.

As a tagline, “You’ll float too” sounds more like a promise than a threat (maybe it’s both?), and the upcoming adaptation of It definitely seems ready and willing to deliver. Even if you haven’t read Stephen King’s classic horror novel and lack the context for that tagline, there’s something undeniably disturbing about it, especially when taken with this new poster created exclusively for Comic-Con 2017.

With the It movie coming to theaters sooner than we’re all probably prepared for, there’s already talk of the sequel. The films are spaced 30 years apart, much like the distinct sections of the book — the first set when all the main characters are children, and the second when they’ve all grown up, but haven’t grown out of their childhood traumas. The director of Part I, Andres Muschietti, recently revealed that he will definitely be back for Part II.