The IT 2017 movie, aka IT: Part 1 – The Losers' Club, featuring Bill Skarsgård's terrifying Pennywise the clown has had its first round of reactions, but most importantly the book's author Stephen King has given his official verdict on the remake.
Despite reports that horror king King wasn't consulted about the new movie, he seems to have nothing but good things to say about director Andrés Muschietti's work.
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Stephen told Bloody Disgusting: "I had hopes, but I was not prepared for how good it really was.
"It's something that's different, and at the same time, it's something that audiences are gonna relate to.
"They're gonna like the characters. To me, it's all about character. If you like the characters... if you care... the scares generally work."
It's thought that the author's lack of involvement so far could be down to the fact King was put front and centre for promotion of The Dark Tower, which opened to scathing reviews and disappointing ticket sales at the box office.
However, SK seems to have liked this film so much that, in an ode to his 1986 horror novel, he placed a Pennywise-style red balloon outside of his house and somehow this ended up on the local news.
Some critics have had a chance to see the horror flick and also had very positive things to say:
IT centres on a group of kids who band together to fight Pennywise, an evil murderous clown who has been kidnapping small children.
The original TV movie was split into two parts, focusing on the children's battle as kids, then facing off against Pennywise again as adults. However, the new movie is splitting this second part into a sequel instead.
IT (also known as It: Part 1 – The Losers' Club in some regions ) will be opening in the US and the UK on Friday, September 8.
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Laurence Mozafari (he/him) is a multi-award winning journalist, editor, and presenter. A former Editor-in-Chief of Digital Spy, Laurence previously held roles as the site's Editor, Deputy Editor, and Associate Editor focusing on news, social, and video. Laurence hosted the BBC Sounds podcast Obsessed with Peaky Blinders in 2019. He also hosts his own podcast production, Time of My Life, where he interviews fascinating elders about their life lessons, including Only Fools and Horses' Sir David Jason, Star Trek’s George Takei and Bridgerton’s Adjoa Andoh.
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