8 Things IT Chapter 2 Must Do To Succeed

3. Don't Be Afraid To Deviate From The Novel

Stephen King It
Viking Press

Fans of the novel will know that Chapter One took a lot of liberties with the source material, but this wasn't a case of needless, pointless change. Everything the filmmakers altered ended up working perfectly.

Changes like focusing on one timeline, choosing not to feature some of the monsters from the novel and removing one of its most controversial scenes didn't feel unnecessary; they felt like they were all done to service the movie and the story.

For instance, the single-timeline approach was a much better fit for the movie adaptation. It allowed audiences to focus on one story and one part of the Losers' lives, rather than flitting between two. This made the movie easier to watch and a lot more engaging.

Similarly, the filmmakers should not be afraid to change parts of the novel when adapting it for Chapter Two.

Some good changes they could make would be to remove Henry Bowers from the story altogether - when combined with Pennywise and all his other forms, it just feels like one-too-many villains - and including monsters that adults in 2016 (when Chapter Two will take place) would be afraid of.

The original Stephen King book is almost 1,200 pages long, so there's no way it can be adapted faultlessly - something has to go in order for the movie to work.

Contributor
Contributor

Danny has been with WhatCulture for over ten years, and is currently Doctor Who Editor and WhoCulture Channel Manager, overseeing all of WhatCulture's Whoniverse coverage. In 2022, he took charge of WhoCulture and has grown it into the biggest Doctor Who channel on YouTube, and one of the biggest Doctor Who communities on the web full-stop. He has been writing and video editing since his early teens, and first got a taste for content creation after making his own Doctor Who trailers, off the back of a burning obsession with the Matt Smith era of the show. Like many his age, he first got into Doctor Who with the 2005 revival, but has since gone back and fallen in love with the classic years too. If you need someone to recite every Doctor Who episode in order, or to give you a random factoid about the making of Gridlock, Danny is the person to ask!