Why Pennywise Will Scare You Even More In It 2

In not so long a time, we're going to see Bill Skarsgard's Pennywise return to the big screen in what promises to be an even bigger, even weirder and (hopefully) even more scary sequel. We're now in the midst of the marketing campaign for the sequel and the director, Andy Muschietti has been talking alongside producer Barbara Muschietti to Collider about what we can expect of the film.

By the sound of it, we're in for a more intense sequel that has allowed Skarsgard's monstrous entity off the reins a little more thanks to the experiences of the first movie.

The interesting interview reveals that the flashbacks exist in the movie because the entire thing is a flashback and the missing parts from 1989 are bits the kids forgot as they grew up. Or more pertinently, it's all trauma that they suppressed and that trauma is being brought out once more by the return of Pennywise when they grow up.

The film obviously also offers an opportunity to explore more adult fears, which Collider brought up in the interview, and it's certainly an intriguing prospect to see how much darker and more challenging those fears are. As we get older, inherent fears change to be more focused on mortality, but the Losers Club had such specific trauma in their past that theirs will be a smorgasbord of horrificness on an entirely different level along with all of the normal, relatable fears.

And by the sound of it, Pennywise is going to be dialled up significantly too, which is a hell of a hype-building prospect, given how incredible Skarsgard was in the role first time out.

The launching point for the evolution was the end of the first movie and how the creature's experiences with the Losers Club fundamentally warped its perception of itself. Up to that point, it was basically unchallengable and almighty and they come along and force it to entertain the idea of its own fallibility.

When you're an ancient monster used to getting your own way, that's going to leave just as much of a mark on It as the experiences did on the kids.

Andy Muschietti offers some insight into how Pennywise is going to be more scary and what went into that:

"The return, we talked for hours, Bill and I talked for hours to discuss the character. One, in a larger, bigger plan for Pennywise on this one. Make sure that he came with a very specific and focused feeling of revenge against the losers and he just comes - there’s a bigger plan, there’s a step ahead that he didn’t have in the first movie and there’s also a deepened sense of manipulation and perversion, as well as smarts and intelligence this time."

Barbara Muschietti then also revealed her insight into the psychology of the character, learned from reading the book repeatedly as the films were in production:

"...There’s, I think, it’s a page in which you hear the voice of Pennywise in the book, and what you hear is that he is just annoyed because all he wants to do is eat and sleep, and now these guys have come back to f**k that up for him, right? But then there’s no more explanation or elaboration of that in the book, and that’s something that Andy and Bill have to work with, a smarter Pennywise, somebody... That she had to defeat these guys that had almost defeated him, and he knew the stakes. So it was quite a Titanic enterprise that they, these 2 guys [Andy and Bill], embarked on and I think they nailed it. And so does Stephen King."

The director also revealed that we should expect Pennywise to be even more intense than he was last time out, which, again, is more good news. He revealed that in the first movie he consciously removed the child actors from being around Bill Skarsgard so that their reactions to him were organic. This time out, even when working with adults who wouldn't be as easily scared, Bill nonetheless still had a similar impact.

"Bill is ever intimidating in all the makeup and costume, and he’s like 6’6″. He warms up. He’s not a method actor, but when he warms up, he generates a silence in the set that’s terrifying. He lives in this little black tent… it’s a big mystery and suddenly you hear from the corner of the set [clown laugh], and that’s him warming up the voice. And that’s where everybody shuts the f*ck up. He comes in like a long shadow."

When the description of an actor getting into his role is as creepy as that, you know we're in for a good time.