How IT Became The Highest Grossing R-Rated Horror Ever
2. The Strength Of The Original Brand (And Not Messing With It)
You can complain about the 1990 mini-series adaptation until you're white in the face. Yes, it's nowhere near as good as some people would have you believe. Yes, it's mostly just successful because of Tim Curry's Pennywise. Yes, it looks dated and quite cheaply made... But it did something quite stunning to the horror community: it essentially invented an obsession that transcended the film itself.
Even without people seeing it, It (1990) launched Tim Curry's Pennywise into the collective consciousness, establishing an irresistible brand for him that rivals the likes of Michael Myers and Freddy Krueger and without the countless, insistent sequels. It made clowns scary and crucially, it made the image of Curry as Pennywise one of the most iconic visual phrases in horror movie history.
That brand strength proved to be a massive selling point for the new movie in a very clever way. Because Pennywise was so iconic, original fans wanted to see how Bill Skarsgard's version would stack up (which is an easy marketing win from the get-go). They were probably very ready to berate Skarsgard's attempt to wipe Curry out of history - to mock his gall.
But then Skarsgard's Pennywise is entirely different. He looks different. He scares different. He's constructed entirely different. Warner Bros and Muschietti didn't compete, they made a companion, and that was genius, because it allows the two to co-exist.
1. The Almighty Power Of The Meme
Much the same way as the original Pennywise has become a meme that essentially stands in for general clown scares, Warner Bros released just enough material from the new film to allow Skarsgard's Pennywise to build up a mythos that would similarly translate into memeable material.
As soon as that excellent first trailer came out, his look became incredibly effective, but since then we've seen snatches of his astonishing performance take on lives of their own. He is a walking, talking, terrifying meme already, and the immediate culture of "Pennywise dances to anything" memes proves exactly why.