Director and Pennywise actor both open to making IT: Chapter Three

IT: Chapter Two opened this past weekend to big box office success, raking in nearly $100 million in its first few days in theaters. Is it destined to have the same legs as its predecessor, which went on to become the highest-grossing horror movie of all time?

Honestly, it probably doesn’t matter. IT: Chapter Two is already a hit. And if you haven’t noticed, when something is a hit in Hollywood, studios tend to want to milk it for as much money as possible. That leads to the question: Are we going to get an IT: Chapter Three?

A few SPOILERS for IT: Chapter Two float below.

“The book, as it is, is done,” producer Barbara Muschietti told io9. She’s right, of course. These last two movies adapted Stephen King’s IT, a behemoth of a book with two parallel stories: in one timeline, a group of kids in the sleepy town of Derry, Maine confront a nameless evil that often takes the form of a clown named Pennywise. Twenty-seven years later, those same kids return to Derry to face down the monster once more, and to kill it for good. In the book, these timelines run alongside each other. The movies split them up, with Chapter One focusing on the kids and Chapter Two on the adults.

But just because Warner Bros. is done adapting the book doesn’t mean there aren’t other directions the filmmakers could take. “There is a whole mythology to the book though,” said director Andy Muschietti, Barbara’s brother. “Mythology is something that always has opportunities to explore. IT has been on Earth for millions of years. He’s been in contact with humans for hundreds of years, every 27 years. So you can imagine the amount of material.”

That’s something we learned in Chapter Two, that IT is an alien being that crashed to Earth in the distant past, and has been making things difficult for people in the northeastern United States ever since. It sounds like Muschietti is interested in making a prequel. “It’s always exciting to think of eventually exploring this mythology,” he said. “It’s very exciting. But, for now, there’s nothing on the table.”

Barbara Muschietti rejected io9’s pitch of Pennywise versus dinosaurs, unfortunately.

Muschietti isn’t the only one thinking on the idea of a sequel/prequel/sidestory/whatever. Speaking to Entertainment Weekly, Bill Skarsgård — Pennywise itself — also sounds like he’s on board:

"It would have to be the right type of approach to it. The book ends where the second movie ends, so that is the final chapter of this story. There is this interesting aspect of going back in time before all this happened. There might be a story there that might be worth exploring. Obviously that would be a story that’s not in the book, it would be a freestanding story, but obviously within the same universe. So, there might be something interesting out of it. I think it would be fun."

Personally, I’d be cool with them retiring the series now. I saw Chapter Two over the weekend, and I enjoyed it well enough, but not as much as the first entry. I doubt the quality will improve if they move beyond King’s source material and make a period piece about IT frightening prehistoric people.

…although that does sound kind of fun. What if he were still a clown, and the ancient peoples were just confused?

To stay up to date on everything fantasy, science fiction, and WiC, follow our all-encompassing Facebook page and sign up for our exclusive newsletter.

Watch Game of Thrones for FREE with a no-risk, 7-day free trial of Amazon Channels