Recently, New Line Cinema finally released the very first trailer for directorAndres Muschietti’s upcoming take onStephen King’s IT, which is easily one of the author’s most beloved works. The collective internet went absolutely nuts for it because, put simply, it is one of the best trailers to be released in quite some time. Part of this is probably being driven by the nostalgia that many of us feel for the 1990 version ofIT, which was done as a two-part TV miniseries. Though, it more or less served as a movie. Or two movies. However you want to look at it. Nostalgia can be a good thing, but this new and terrifying trailer proved that we really, truly need anITremake.
Thenew IT trailer, according toDeadline, was viewed nearly 200 million times in the first 24 hours of its release. That shattered the previous record. A big part of that had to do with the fact that this trailer is straight-up scary, which is what it needs to be. Put nostalgic feelings aside for a brief moment. When was the last time you watched the 1990 version ofIT? All do respect toTim Curry, who playedPennywise the clownin that version, but it simply isn’t that scary. There are some great performances in that version, like the aforementionedTim Curry, but it just isn’t scary. At least not on the level thatITdeserves to be. Perhaps creepy, but not genuinely frightening. Anyone who has readITknows that the source material is downright horrifying and that, above all else, is why we need a modern, genuinely scary version ofIT.
Stephen King has crafted a lot of great horrorin his day, butITis quite possibly his work most deserving of a great movie adaptation. The 1990 version, at least the first half of it, is good for its own reasons, but it simply doesn’t live up to the level of horror that exists in the novel. No, we haven’t seen this new movie yet, but the trailer alone makes it clear that Pennywise is pure, unfiltered nightmare fuel. There is a lot of scary imagery in that first trailer, but nobody is immune to the pure terror of that final shot. Pennywise (played this time around byBill Skarsgard) emerging from the water like that, on a mission to absolutely murder and eat a kid, using his missing, adorable little brother as bait. Pure, A-grade horror. People are commonly afraid of clowns, but this is the kind of thing that can make everyone living person afraid of clowns. Hell, even actual clowns recently worried that the movie was going to harm their profession. Sorry clowns, but that is kind of amazing when you think about it. That is whatITshould be. That is whatITdeserves. And that’s just based on the first trailer.
Let’s look at this from another angle. Let’s say that you actually love the 1990 version ofITand that you feel it can truly never be topped. Okay, fair enough. You can have that version and love it the way that you love it now and always will. But can you expect a person who didn’t grow up with that version to feel the same way that you feel about it? Can I really expect my 18-year-old brother to look at that version the same way? That version ofIThasn’t aged particularly well and modern audiences simply can’t be expected to respond to it in the same way. ButStephen King’sITis very much a story worth telling in a visual medium outside of the novel. Modern audiences deserve a chance to see that story done in a way that will resonate with them. That is the point of a remake and that is when you know one is really worth doing.
What frustrates so many moviegoers is when a remake feels truly unnecessary, which seems to be more frequent. Why are they doing this? Is there a reason for this beyond a cash grab? Those are often questions lobbied at Hollywood’s current remake obsession. For example, takeRob Zombie’sHalloween. Yes, there are some people who like that movie, but the originalHalloweenholds up in every way something can be expected to hold up. It is still scary. It still works.Rob Zombie, as a creator, probably felt as though he had a creative reason to retell that story. But as audience members, it seemed downright confusing and truly unnecessary. That is not the cast withIT. I would wager that even the most staunch defenders of the 1990 version can see the reasoning behind doing a modern version ofIT.
We may only have a trailer to go by, but it is clear thatAndres Muschiettiunderstands what makesITsodamn scaryand how to present those elements to a modern audience. Who knows? He could have botched it and somehow, someone was able to cut together one of the best trailers for a modern horror movie in a long time using only the best parts of an otherwise bad movie. But that seems a little doubtful. At worst, we’ll be getting an average, modern version ofITwith some probably great scares. There are already plans for anIT sequel, which would feature the kids of Derry all grown up, like in the novel and in the second part of the 1990 miniseries. If this goes even remotely well, it will be hard to complain about this particular remake. This one feels necessary. This one feels right. Well, as right as a movie about a kid murdering/eating clown can feel.
Bill Skarsgardleads the cast ofStephen King’sITas Pennywise the clown. The cast also includesJaden Lieberher,Finn Wolfhard,Jack Dylan Grazer,Wyatt Oleff,Chosen Jacobs,Jeremy Ray TaylorandOwen Teague.ITis being directed byAndres Muschietti(Mama) and is set for release on August 07, 2025.
