Stephen King, legendary horror author and the creator of Pennywise, has been fairly vocal of New Line’s It movie.
Indeed, just prior to the film’s September release, King went on record to admit that he was pleasantly surprised by Andy Muschietti’s big-screen adaptation, which is a ringing endorsement in and of itself. But now that the dust has settled, and It has chewed its way to a staggering box office cume ($700 million, last we checked), Stephen King recently sat down with Entertainment Weekly to reflect on It‘s success, which he attributes to something of a perfect storm.
I think one of the things that really happened was that 1990 miniseries. A whole generation of kids between the ages of 8 and 14 were scared shitless by Tim Curry and when the new one came out it was a chance to revisit that particular experience in their childhood. Then there was this weird viral bulge in stories about creepy clowns. That was in the press all over the place. So it was a number of different things. It was the right movie at the right time.
2017 was a strange and at times perplexing year for many a reason, but one thing’s certain: It launched countless nightmares with its deft pacing and unrelenting sense of dread, while one could argue that Bill Skarsgård’s demented turn as Pennywise is one of the greatest performances of the past five years.
The towering Swede disappeared into King’s horror creation like milk into coffee, and we simply can’t wait to see what’s in store for the upcoming sequel. It’ll arrive under the official title of It: Chapter Two, in which New Line and Andy Muschietti will revisit the Losers as adults to banish Pennywise once and for all. Before then, however, It will launch on Blu-ray on January 9th, and you can pre-order it from Amazon here.