All-New Featurette Welcomes You to the Losers’ Club

In case you’ve been living under a rock, you already know that the highly anticipated adaptation of Stephen King‘s IT opened in theaters this weekend, already amassing huge numbers at the box office. For those unfamiliar with the original story or anyone apprehensive about seeing a run-of-the-mill horror movie, a new featurette has been released that sheds light on the main characters and what makes their journey so relatable.

“Kids have a wider perspective. They see more, they believe more, they notice more,” King explains. “In It, I wanted to create characters who still believe in everything children believe, and yet not. These kids no longer believe in Santa Claus or the Tooth Fairy, but then, when the lights are out, they’re still afraid that there’s something under the bed.”

King adds, “Those kids are the only people able to battle this creature because they’re the only ones who still believe in monsters.”

The original story is over 1,100 pages long, which explores not only the characters as adolescents but also as adults. The original 1990 miniseries adaptation intertwined the adult characters with the young characters, similar to how the novel tells its story.

For this adaptation, however, director Andy Muschietti opted to focus solely on the young characters in hopes of connecting with audiences more strongly.

“This is not your standard horror movie. It’s a movie that deals with friendship and the power of confronting darkness together,” the director explained. “It’s a beautiful story of friendship, but this is a Stephen King adaptation, so it’s pretty terrifying.”

Producer Barbara Muschietti echoed Andy’s sentiments, explaining, “This story is a great parable for what happens when we don’t confront our fears.”

While many who aren’t entirely familiar with the plot of IT often associate the horrifying clown Pennywise with the monster the kids face, but this is only one of many forms that the entity takes.

“‘It’ is anything that you are ever afraid of,” star Wyatt Oleff points out. “The Losers figure out something’s been haunting the town.”

IT is in theaters now.