Hollywood has been trying to adapt Stephen King’s massive horror novel It for the big screen for some time, and now New Line Cinema’s It movie has finally started filming. This iteration of the project had a long and somewhat disappointing development process, as True Detective filmmaker Cary Fukunaga had It lined up as his next movie after Beasts of No Nation. He planned a two-film adaptation, with the first film focusing on the characters as children and the second film focusing on them as adults, but when he turned in the script for the first movie that he co-wrote with Chase Palmer, New Line wasn’t thrilled with his “unconventional horror film” take and Fukunaga subsequently left the project.

Now filming is underway with Mama director Andy Muschietti at the helm, and he’s assembled a pretty solid cast led by Hemlock Grove actor Bill Skarsgard as the iconic villain Pennywise. New Line is sticking with Fukunaga’s plan of telling the story across two films, and this first film will star Midnight Special breakout Jaeden Lieberher as well as Finn Wolfhard, Jack Dylan Grazer, Wyatt Oleff, Chosen Jacobs, and Jeremy Ray Taylor as the main group of teens.


Muschietti has shared a couple of behind-the-scenes photos to mark the beginning of filming. I quite liked his handle on horror in Mama even if the film itself was fairly conventional, but it’s going to be hard to let go of my desire to see what Fukunaga had in store for this particular Stephen King adaptation. Regardless, here’s hoping Muschietti crafts a solid horror film that at least brings something new to the table.

Check out the photos below. It is slated for release on September 8, 2017.

Day one A photo posted by Andy Muschietti (@andy_muschietti) on

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Image via Universal Pictures