Fans of Pennywise and the Losers Club are stoked for the upcoming sequel to 2017’s Stephen King reboot IT and so are we! Knowing that, I thought some trivia was in order about the remake to get us ready for Halloween and jonesing for the follow-up! Let’s get into some tidbits!
1. When a movie is shipped to theaters, to kind of halt bootleggers from snagging copies and leaving them confused, studios will give them false names. What was the false name for IT, you ask? “Poundfoolish” as in the exact opposite of “Pennywise”. Commence the Dadjoke groan-chuckle!
2. Poor Bill Skarsgård had some intense drooling to contend with in his roll of Pennywise due to the prosthetic teeth making him drool almost too heavily. Granted, it helped towards his role, but how obnoxious that had to have been to work through!
3. What adds insult to injury to the teeth prosthetic is that Pennywise only has four whole minutes of actual speaking dialogue through the whole film. Then again, would he really be too scary if he had constant speaking dialogue? I think not.
(Warner Bros. Pictures)
4. There are quite a few small easter egg nods to the mini-series original of IT such as a scene where you can find the original Pennywise outfit on a mannequin in the room Richie gets haunted in called the ‘Clown Room’.
5. Bill Skarsgård wasn’t the only one considered for Pennywise, even though he made the most sense thanks to his crazy lip-curling grin. Hugo Weaving of The Matrix and The Lord of the Rings fame was also considered but Bill ended up winning out due to his makeup tests coming off quite a bit more haunting.
6. The film was in development for 7 whole years before it finally began filming. This came down to casting, writing and wanting to get everything just right with who they chose in order to please fans of the mini-series and Stephen King alike. A lot of notes also asked “Why?” when scripts were pushed forward stating it was time for a remake. This is the reason a lot of your favorite films take so long to get remakes, as studios sometimes do step in and decide not to mess with classics.
(Warner Bros. Pictures)
7. Fans of Last Week Tonight may spot John Oliver in the Diner scene. Why? Oliver was such a fan of the book that he was offered a brief moment to be a stand-in. What an interesting non-credit credit!
8. In the book, the Losers Club kids say ‘Beep-beep, Richie!’ as a way to silence him when he was going too far with his jokes. However, in the remake, only Pennywise uses it on Richie which, well, can’t feel good.
9. If you’re wondering where they shot the film, there is no actual Derry but they did film in both Bangor, Maine in the US and alternately a favorite filming location of most films and shows, Vancouver, Canada. So, if you’re really wanting to seek out somewhere to start to find Derry — you might want to start in Maine!
(Warner Bros. Pictures)
10. When directors changed out in the midst of production, only one cast member stayed the whole time and that was Stranger Things’ Finn Wolfhard. Trust me, I’m glad because he was a perfect Richie!
