The planned two-film adaptation of Stephen Kings It has lost True Detective and Jane Eyres Cary Fukunaga as director.
Having recently cast Will Poulter as nightmare fuel, Pennywise the Clown, and set to get underway in New York this June, It is now stalled indefinitely. The Wrap is reporting Fukunagas exit comes midst budget clashes with Warner Bros., who is producing It under New Line, where lower budgeted genre is the name of the game. Shooting on location in New York, plus Fukunagas initial hopes to have praised Australian actor Ben Mendelsohn as Pennywise were apparently points of financial contention.
Theres no word on the studio diving right in with another filmmaker, but the site indicates New Line may shift and hope to adapt It as one longer film instead of a two-parter which separates the main characters childhoods and adult lives. It of course sees a group of kids from Derry, Maineknown as the Losers Clubcontend with a shape-shifting monster. They return to the town as adults upon Its reappearance.
The loss of Fukunaga is a major one. The filmmaker brought great, Gothic sensibility to both Jane Eyre and True Detective. The prospect of him going out-and-out horror was a truly exciting one, indeed.
The remake of IT may be dead–or undead–but we’ll always have Tim Curry. He’s still floating down in the sewers of Derry.
Stephen King (@StephenKing) May 25, 2015
