‘IT’ Sequel Will Explore One Part of the Book the First Film Didn’t

Director Andy Muschietti took many liberties when adapting Stephen King‘s IT into the record-breaking film, one of which related to the narrative structure of the original story. Rather than having the story unravel with the same characters in two different points in their lives, the first installment focused only on the young characters, but the next installment will incorporate those flashbacks.

“The thing I want to bring in the next film that I couldn’t do here is the dialogue between the two timelines,” director Andy Muschietti revealed to Variety. “That was so important in the book and we didn’t get to explore that here, but I wanted to keep the story of the kids as pure and without interference as I could. The dialogue between those two timelines with all those flashbacks is so important to the book that I want to bring that back.”

The original novel is over 1,100 pages long, packing in tons of information about the Losers’ Club and their horrifying encounters with an entity which plagued their small town of Derry, ME. The novel was originally brought to life in 1990 through a miniseries, which clocked in at over three hours long to attempt to capture all of the pertinent material of the source.

Muschietti went a different route, opting to establish the relationships between the characters and their sense of camaraderie before exploring those characters as adults.

Fans who have been following the project knew that this would be the intention of the filmmakers, but considering this summer’s disappointing reaction to the Stephen King adaptation of The Dark Tower, it appears as though the studio was wary of announcing multiple installments before proven success. Luckily, with IT opening to $123 million, a second installment is inevitable, despite no solid timeline being announced.

IT is currently in theaters.