Although the Losers were able to send Pennywise the Clown running at the tail end of It, there's
still a whole 'nother round of demon-fighting yet to come when Chapter Two hits theaters.
The film will revisit the group as they're called back to Derry, Maine to fulfill their
oath to battle It again, nearly three decades later.
Director Andy Muschietti is expected to return for the sequel alongside screenwriter Gary
Dauberman, and the film's production is scheduled to kick off sometime this summer.
Here's what else we know about It: Chapter Two so far.
Beware of spoilers.
Calling back the kids
Although the septet of kids who carried the first film fulfilled their duties to take
down the clown, the young actors portraying them are still expected to reprise their roles
for at least part of the sequel.
Just as Stephen King's novel bounced back between the adult and children's perspectives,
Chapter Two will feature some memory lane journeying that'll show us some more of what
the kids went through.
As Muschietti explained to Entertainment Weekly:
"On the second movie, that dialogue between timelines will be more present.
If we're telling the story of adults, we are going to have flashbacks that take us back
to the '80s and inform the story in the present day."
Muschietti added that the kids will be "a big part of the action," and since Bill Skarsgard
himself will return to reprise Pennywise, things are bound to be just as scary for everyone
involved this time around, too.
A new timeline
Instead of having the kids do battle in Derry during the '50s, as seen in Stephen King's
story and the 1990 TV mini-series adaptation, the cinematic version of It takes places in
the late '80s.
That means that the new film will take place in present day, since the child-slaying monster
returns to feed every 27 years.
While it might seem like something will be lost in the way of nostalgia without the second
feature taking place in a throwback period, that's actually the way King originally intended
it, since he also set the adult-era events of his story in the same time period of the
book's release.
We'll just have to wait and see whether the era of smartphones, 24-hour media coverage,
and GPS tracking have an impact on the events of the story, of course.
But considering It is an eternal kind of evil, this slight change in setting shouldn't make
too much of a difference.
Courting a cast
The cast of the first It movie have already come up with a few ideas as to who should
play their grown-up characters in the second film.
Finn Wolfhard sees Bill Hader being a good match for the next Richie Tozier, while Wyatt
Oleff said Joseph Gordon-Levitt might be a good match for Stanley Uris, and Jaeden Lieberher
sees Christian Bale as his adult counterpart of choice for Bill Denbrough.
Meanwhile, Chosen Jacobs pictures the Black Panther himself, Chadwick Boseman, as the
grown-up version of Mike Hanlon.
And he's not the only one with Marvel-ous ambitions: Jeremy Ray Taylor is eyeing the
Star-Lord, Chris Pratt take over as the newly-buffed up Ben Hanscom in the new movie.
Meanwhile, Jack Dylan Grazer would fancast Jake Gyllenhaal as Eddie Kaspbrak.
Last but not least, Sophia Lillis likes Jessica Chastain for Beverly Marsh 2.0.
They're all solid suggestions, and at least one of them may come true.
Variety reports that Chastain has officially entered talks to star as Beverly Marsh in
Chapter Two, which is probably not too surprising since she and Muschietti previously worked
together on film Mama and have both expressed an interest in re-teaming for this project.
Other dimensions
Sure, the first It film included some odd moments, like when Pennywise broke out a strange
dance move and still managed to be terrifying.
But things could have been a lot weirder if the source material is anything to go by.
In Stephen King's original text, the horror sprinkles in some high-concept sci-fi as it
explores the cosmic origins of Pennywise and a giant turtle god called Maturin, which basically
vomited up the universe.
Nods to the turtle were spotted by eagle-eyed fans in the first film, but the multiverse,
and Pennywise's other forms, were largely ignored all the same.
Muschietti has since pointed to the film's limited budget and scope as reasons for not
featuring these scenes in the film but plans to bring them into the picture for part two.
That means we're going to find out a whole lot more about the deadlights and venture
forth into new realms of existence to fight this evil.
A grim return
As King's readers and fans of the mini-series will know, Stanley Uris does not take the
news of It's return very well.
And he's not the only one who's going to struggle with emotional distress in the wake of what's
happened to him and the other kids of his hometown.
Mike Hanlon, too, will endure some personal struggles as a result of their encounter with
It.
By the time the others return to their hometown, Hanlon will have turned to drugs in his despair.
Muschietti describes the character as a "junkie" in the sequel, but it turns out that his addiction
also serves a vital purpose in the fight against Pennywise.
In the book, younger versions of the Losers Club deliberately inhale fumes in a "smoke-hole"
to learn more about their foe, but here, Hanlon's experience with drugs as an adult will alter
his mind and help him to figure out how to defeat the ancient creature via the bizarrely
named "Ritual of Chüd."
While some fans of the book may object to this change, Muschietti claims the idea is
to infuse Hanlon's character with "more agency," providing him with a more important role during
the gap where the rest of the Losers Club found success in their lives away from Derry.
Deleted scenes float
The theatrical version of It was well over two hours long, and it still didn't represent
Muschietti's full vision of the story.
The director's producing partner sister Barbara Muschietti hinted that a scene with white
supremacists burning down the Black Spot nightclub could still appear in the sequel.
Meanwhile, Muschietti revealed he'd wanted to include an ancient flashback to It's first
encounter with human beings and a scene that showed Bill happening upon a bunch of balloons
and fallen children in the stream.
Perhaps most grisly of all, an early draft of the first film's script included a colonial
England scene wherein Pennywise forced a mother to give up her own baby for It to devour.
If Muschietti and his team are turning to the cutting room floor for inspiration, and
any or all of these scenes are folded into Chapter Two, well, we're getting a pretty
good taste of just how terrifying the second It film will be.
It: Chapter Two is slated to hit theaters on September 6th, 2019.
"Time to float."
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