Stephen King’s It Creeps Toward the Big Screen

Posted by Robin Ruinsky (robin@filmschoolrejects.com) on March 13, 2009

There’s this group of outcast kids who live in small town America in 1958. They think their biggest worries are the bullies who torment them and the woes of adolescence. But nope, that’s not the worst of it. Deep in the depths of their little town there lives a killer that is the stuff of nightmares. Pennywise the clown lures little children to their deaths and being a clown is beyond creepy. The kids grow up and all but one move away in an effort to forget their encounter with the evil that is in their hometown of Derry, Maine. But they find out that Pennywise is still on the loose and are called home to vanquish him.

Stephen King knew what he was doing when he tapped into the clown image for his bestseller coming of age/horror novel “It”.  Those creepy white face adorned, bewigged, crazily dressed creatures called clowns were bad enough before King took them to their most horrible outer limits. It was bad enough to see then run loose in the circus, but here the clown is taken to his logical conclusion. This is the clown as crazed serial killer, timeless monster with a big old secret identity just waiting to be revealed.

It was a miniseries in 1990 starring Tim Curry as the killer clown. Now, Pennywise will hit the big screen in a Warner Bros. feature adaptation of the King novel. It will be written by David Kajganich who’s also writing the remake of Escape from New York. Dan Lin, Roy Lee and Doug Davison are producing. The casting of the group of seven as adults could be interesting. Then they’ve got to match the kid actors to them.

So, are you all in a state of terror or delighted anticipation at the prospect of a big screen killer clown with an icky secret?

Read more articles by Robin Ruinsky