Print Page - Writer talks about IT remake...

"It" is my all time favorite novel. Strangely enough, I'm willing to be open-minded about a film adaptation, even on that's only slated to be 2 hours long.

The fact that the novel is over 1000 pages long makes this almost seem unthinkable. However, one must consider several things:

-The novel has five "interludes". The only one that is really super important to the story is the last one. These all add up to about 100 pages total, not counting the last interlude. Likely, these will be left out of the movie, and rightfully so. Hell, most people I know who have read the book multiple times say they skip the interludes anyway.

-There are several whole and sub-chapters that revolve more around side characters or finer details (i.e. kids weren't part of the main group that Pennywise killed, a scene where cops question a gay man whose boyfriend fell into the river and was taken by Pennywise, large amounts of very deep detail that usually wouldn't work in a film).

I think the biggest challenge will be including enough from the past and integrating it with the adults' experiences in the future. There are a lot of individual encounters the characters have with Pennywise that will probably be dropped or change, but that's how film works.

Seriously, I'm looking forward to the movie. I'd like to see how they can make this one work. It won't be the same without Tim Curry, but hopefully they can cast a really creepy Pennywise. Anyone think of an actor that would be good for the role?

I should just copy and paste:

Quote

Lilja: You are also working on a remake of IT, how did that happen?

David Kajganich: When I heard Warner Bros. was going to give the novel a go theatrically, I went after the job hard. I knew the studio was committed to adapting IT as a single film, so I went back and reread the novel to see if I thought this was even possible, and to try to find a structure that would accommodate such a large number of characters in two different time periods, around 120 pages, which was another of the studio’s stipulations.

Had I not worked with the producers before, I might have been more tentative about trying to pull off such a massive undertaking, but I’d worked with Dan Lin, Roy Lee, and Doug Davison on our original version of The Invasion, and I knew they would fight for good storytelling, and would also give me the time I needed to work out a solid first draft, which they did. They really went to bat for that. We’ve done some tinkering with it and I am just about to turn that draft in to the studio, so we’ll soon know a lot more.

Lilja: Will it be a feature movie or a new TV series? There have been rumors about both.

David Kajganich: In all of my talks with the studio, it has only ever been discussed as a single feature film. The book's length is clearly more suited to a mini-series—and I understand very well why they went that route the last time around—but I think the book’s content is really more appropriate for cinema. I told the studio from the beginning that I felt I needed to be able to write for an R rating, since I wanted to be as candid as the novel about the terrible things the characters go through as kids. They agreed and off I went.

Lilja: What will be different in your version of IT compared to the TV series?

David Kajganich: I think the biggest difference is that we’re working with about two-thirds the onscreen time they had for the miniseries. That sounds dire, I know, but it doesn’t necessarily mean two-thirds the amount of story. I’m finding as many ways as I can to make certain scenes redundant by deepening and doubling others. To me, this is an interesting process because it has the effect of thematically intensifying the whole, but it can lead to dramatic surprises. Certain scenes I thought would be crucial to the coherence of the whole ended up cut, while other scenes, which were somewhat cursory in the book, ended up being pivotal in the script.

I know I’m being vague, but there’s not a lot I can tell you at this point about the specifics, since we’re still very much in development on it. I’ll just say for now that we’re really swinging for the fences.

Lilja: I guess it’s pretty hard to translate such a massive book to a movie.

David Kajganich: It’s been an enormous challenge, yes, but the rewards for me as a writer have been just as big. I’ve looked at every word of the book many times and I’ve spent months working with the text, uncovering all of the connections and nuances. In a way, it’s like taking a look inside Stephen King’s head, which is fascinating. Needless to say, I’ve learned a lot about story-telling, and from a master.

But I know how collaborative the filmmaking process is, and how many cooks will soon begin coming into the kitchen, so I’m really trying to enjoy being in this world more or less alone for the moment.

Lilja: Did you have anyone special in mind for any of the roles when you wrote the script?

David Kajganich: The thing about Stephen King’s writing is that he draws his characters so well, it's hard not to imagine they're real people. I think this is particularly the case with IT. So it honestly didn't occur to me to try to think of actors in those roles. Pennywise is a bit of a different story, though. His manner is so crucial to what's frightening about him, and it's too much fun to imagine all of the nuances different actors could give him. I think there are a hundred actors who could each pull off a fascinating, horrifying Pennywise, and I tried not to get too attached to any one actor in my head. (That said, my dream choice would be Buster Keaton, if he were acting today. Just think about it for a second—can’t you just see that stoic charm put to such unholy use? It creeps me out to no end to imagine it.)

Generally speaking, though, I think the Pennywise in this adaptation is a less self-conscious of his own irony and surreality than was Tim Curry's Pennywise. I think it will be harder to laugh at his antics since, under the permissiveness of an R rating, I was able to give him back a lot of his more upsetting moments from the novel, ones that could never be aired on network television

I really don't know how they're gonna pull it off in two hours.
But the writer really seems to care so I hope they get it right.

Tim Roth for Pennywise? :smile:

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Movies => Press Releases and Film News => Topic started by: Doggett on August 08, 2010, 02:57:04 PM