Stephen King's 'It' Director Wasn't a 'Big Fan' of 1990 Mini-Series
08/31/2017 03:40 pm EDT
Nearly 30 years after its release, the 1990 mini-series adaptation of Stephen King's It causes nightmares about creepy clowns for virtually anyone who watches it. Even though many look back on the adaptation fondly, Andy Muschietti, director of this year's adaptation of the novel, doesn't particularly enjoy it.
"To be honest, I wasn't a big fan of the mini-series," Muschietti explained to SFX Magazine in a recent interview. "I was not a child anymore when it came out in 1990. So my attachment was very much to the book and to the world of Stephen King more than the mini-series."
The '90s was full of TV adaptations of King's work, some of those efforts stronger than others, but the differences in production value between a 1990 mini-series and a 2017 theatrical release are quite drastic. Despite the director himself not being a huge fan, he still understands how fondly many King fans view it.
"I totally acknowledge how iconic that mini-series was for a generation," Muschietti pointed out. "But also you have to say that it impacted that generation because they saw it with very young eyes as a TV movie or on VHS. A lot of people don't remember the whole thing, but they are terrified of the iconic scenes of the clown behind the sheets in the beginning and the storm drain."
To many, the most iconic part of the mini-series was Tim Curry's performance as Pennywise the clown. The performances of the rest of the cast and the film's production value can all be debated, but almost everyone who sees the series commends Curry.
"I wanted to stay true to the essence of the character," Muschietti previously explained to Variety about this being a reinterpretation of the source material. "I knew that I didn't want to go the road of Tim Curry. Bill Skarsgard caught my attention. The character has a childish and sweet demeanor, but there's something very off about him. Bill has that balance in him. He can be sweet and cute, but he can be pretty disturbing."
The director also pointed out that that although Skarsgard didn't necessarily stay in character in between takes, he didn't want the young cast to spend too much time with the actor when not shooting, and encouraged the cast to "maintain distance" between them.
"We wanted to carry the impact of the encounters to when the cameras were rolling," Muschietti detailed. "The first scene where Bill interacted with the children, it was fun to see how the plan worked. The kids were really, really creeped out by Bill. He's pretty intimidating because he's six-four and has all this makeup."
It lands in theaters on September 8.
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