Stephen King’s ‘It’ to be a two-part movie

K. Thor Jensen Contributing Writer, Entertainment

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I thrust my fists against the posts and still insist I see the clowns. Stephen King doesn’t seem to be the powerhouse he once was, at least in the movie department – I’d blame Dreamcatcher for that – but it looks like he still pulls some Hollywood clout.

It, the 1986 novel that told the story of a group of childhood friends who reunite to face the horrible creature that tormented them in their youth, has already been adapted into a 1990 TV miniseries with Tim Curry as “Pennywise,” the evil clown avatar, but now The Hollywood Reporter is breaking the news that it’s in line for a double-film reboot helmed by Cary Fukunaga, director of Sin Nonbre and Jane Eyre.

What brought this new spurt of interest in a decades-old property? Warner Brothers picked up the rights in 2009 and originally intended to make it one movie, but since drawn-out spectacles have proven successful at the box office, splitting it up makes some kind of weird sense – unless the first movie bombs. The last King movie to hit theaters was 2007′s The Mist (unless you count the Bollywood adaptation of Quitters, Inc), with subsequent adaptations going straight to DVD. Do you think today’s jaded audiences will respond to It?

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