Will Poulter, best known for his roles in The Chronicles of Narnia: Voyage of the Dawn Treader and The Maze Runner, has landed a major part in a very different kind of literary adaptation. According to Variety, the We’re the Millers star is currently in negotiations to play Pennywise the clown in the upcoming two-part remake of Stephen King’s IT. Cary Fukunaga, the Emmy-winning director behind the first season of HBO’s “True Detective,” is directing and co-writing.
Published in 1986, IT is described on King’s official site as follows:
A promise made twenty-eight years ago calls seven adults to reunite in Derry, Maine, where as teenagers they battled an evil creature that preyed on the city’s children. Unsure that their Losers Club had vanquished the creature all those years ago, the seven had vowed to return to Derry if IT should ever reappear. Now, children are being murdered again and their repressed memories of that summer return as they prepare to do battle with the monster lurking in Derry’s sewers once more.
The book was previously adapted by Tommy Lee Wallace as a 1990 two-part, three-hour event miniseries on ABC, starring Tim Curry as Pennywise.
Poulter, who also stars in Birdman director Alejandro González Iñárritu’s The Revenant, reportedly blew Fukunaga away with his IT audition, so audiences should be in for a treat when the two-part adaptation finally hits the screen.
Fukunaga wrote the screenplay for the films with Chase Palmer and David Kajganich. Dan Lin, David Katzenberg, Doug Davison and Seth Grahame-Smith are attached to serve as producers.
(Photo Credit: WENN.com)
